Criticism of Israel

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"the Palestinian issue will never die"

The word Palestinian has changed in meaning. It may change again. The issue comes from the last half of the last century and will not last to the last half of this century.

The 1st Century bit is a fantasy as are many elements in the late 20th Century "Palestinian" Story.

In the year 53b.c. these comments were heard on the streets of Jerusalem...
"so much hurt, so much pain, so many versions of the same story.. they hit us .. we hit them...
We fight to the death for a meager piece of land.. dirt.. sand.. we will not give it up and neither will they..."

Today is 2007.. and these sharp whispers still apply today.. the Palestinian issue will never die.. never. Its in our minds, our blood.. our heritage.. and our checkbooks... is this civilization??
who are the Barbarians..??

In the year 53b.c. these comments were heard on the streets of Jerusalem...
"so much hurt, so much pain, so many versions of the same story.. they hit us .. we hit them...
We fight to the death for a meager piece of land.. dirt.. sand.. we will not give it up and neither will they..."

Today is 2007.. and these sharp whispers still apply today.. the Palestinian issue will never die.. never. Its in our minds, our blood.. our heritage.. and our checkbooks... is this civilization??
who are the Barbarians..??

m742k

m742k

I am a Jew and I do not give Israel a free pass to do whatever it wants in the world.

I share a religion with the Israelis but I share something else as well - humanity. We're all human, we all have the capacity to make mistakes, including mistakes in the treatment of other humans.

I support Israel's right to defend itself from whatever small extremist minority wants to destroy it, but I have to wonder how effective its recent tactics have been, both militarily and in public relations terms.

It's natural to side with one's own people, to give them the benefit of the doubt. There used to be millions of Native Americans on the North American contintent. Now there aren't. Most Americans don't talk or indeed even think about this. How silly, to think that our people would do that! How silly to think that our people, our government commited.... genocide?

We all have good and bad in us. Pride in who we are is good, but we must not let it blind us to the potential for mistakes that resides in all people, even our own.

Well, I come back for a peak and the "same old same old" is still rampant.
Anonymous makes a good point. As i've said repeatedly, the fences and checkpoints would come down if the violence toward Israel would cease.

If a Hezbollah soldier were wounded and caught by Israelis, he would be treated medically to try and save his life. Turn the tables and the Israeli soldier would be killed and paraded as a prize.

Until the Arab moderates tamp down the forces of Hamas and Hezzbollah, there is no reason for Israel to let down it's guard.

And the U.S. should increase it's funding to help Israel prevail over these barbarians whose leaders use hatred of Israel to innoculate the masses against their utter incompetence and inability to create a viable economic and social model.

The sad truth of it all, if Hamas and Hezbolah were to disarm there would be peace but if the Israeli nation were to disarm there would be no Israel. That's the truth... I see nothing wrong with Israel defending itself do you?

This is from the Jews Against Zionism site.

"The leading commentators, such as Yefe Toiar [on the Midrash Rabba Shir HaShirim 2:7], explain that from the Midrash [Midrash Rabba Shir HaShirim 2:7] seems to be that even without rebellion and with permission from the nations, massive emigration and establishing a state is strictly forbidden, until the Messianic era comes, when all humanity will live in brotherhood and peace, serving the One and Only G-D. Almost all the Midrash is full with the idea that no redemption whatsoever will be possible until the coming of the Messiah and we don't know to be any dispute in the Midrash about this point."

I have the Soncino Press edition of Midrash Rabba Shir HaShirim 2:7 in front of me.

Rabbi Oshaia said the Holy One said wait for me and I will make you like the heavenly host.

Rabbi Judan in the name of Rabbi Meier said the Holy One said if you observe my oath I will make you like the heavenly host but if not I will make you like the lower host. [Like men. - Perhaps that happened after the Bar Kochba revolt which is mentioned as the third example of Israel defying the Holy One. Perhaps it happened earlier. Two revolts are mentioned before the Bar Kochba revolt.]

Rabbi Jose the son of Rabbi Hanina said there are two adjurations: one addressed to Israel to not rebel against the nations and one to the nations not to make their yoke too heavy on Israel as that would cause the end to come before it was due. {That could be viewed as what has happened and the Arabs could be viewed as having played a role in that since Baghdad is the site of the greatest Talmudic Academy and Jews were not allowed access to the holiest site in Judaism.]

Rabbi Chelbo said four adjurations are mentioned here:

1. Israel should not rebel against the governments.

2. Israel should not seek to hasten the end of times.

3. Israel should not reveal their mysteries to the other nations.

4. Israel should not attempt to return from the Diaspora until the Messiah has come. [That is construed by some Orthodox Jews to forbid the establishment of the modern state of Israel. However today as then most Jews are in the Diaspora.]

Rabbi Berekiah said when the Attribute of Justice shall please of itself the deliverance [of all human beings from slavery] will come.

Victoria,

I have said several times that it is odd you view what you are writing to me as discussion. If you and all the people you know have never even once encountered a Pro Israel Jew who is reasonable about it, how could I be different? And how can you have a discussion with someone you view as wholly unreasonable?

Now let us think about your website's explanations of the Talmud. I have pointed out that the site is flat out wrong about several things:

1. The words were not spoken by the person the site says spoke them.

2. They are not oaths for the Jewish people. There is no way the Jewish people can take an oath about what non Jews will do.

3. The principle established is not that Jews will not go to Israel as there was a Talmudic Academy in Jerusalem at the time.

4. The wall means the Jews are not to move en masse to Israel and they have not done so. Most Jews do not live in Israel and they do not have their bags packed.

The scriptural texts cited in the Talmud include the Song of Songs. Most people do not understand the Jewish allegorical understanding of that text.

I do not see how you infer from what I have written that I do not understand Jewish tradition. I own and have studied all the major commentaries on the Torah. I lead a Torah discussion group. I think I have also shown some understanding of Islam.

Now your view that my words are hostile while yours are those of a patient preson trying to understand do not match my sense of what words mean and how they are used. And I would be pretty surprised if my views on that differed from those of most people in LA and New York.

I was raised as a Jew before I found the true
spiritual road, but that is neither here nore
there.
Israel made many mistakes dealing with the
Palestinians, instead of knocking the homes
of terrorist's relatives they should have
been assisting in the financial well being
of the Palestinian people.
The surrounding Arab nations should have and
still can help the Palestinians create a viable
economy.
The citizens of Israel should have learnt a
lesson as per how hatred diminishes the hater
and emboldens the hated.
This is a true example as per why organized
religion should be abolished.

you leap to mountainous conclusions with the tiniest grain of information dave-

now, as to the talmudic info provided-
i can only assume you are not rally familiar with the great commentators.

ill post some for you as you must realize that the talmud is commentary on the torah
why not start at the beginning and go to the source then build outward?

as you didnt comment i can only assume my effort to present the rabbi-s interview was wasted.

also, as you insulted me unnecessarily, (and not the first time) and dont have the manners to address that (also not the first time) im thinking i am a fool to continue to discuss anything with someone who shows no respect.

Victoria,

First, I showed you what the Talmud says. So it is not I who is ignorant about what you call the three oaths.

Second, it is ignorant to think no Jew who supports Israel is reasonable about Israel.

I am not sure how hard a person is trying when they can not learn what Jews think after living in LA and NYC.

tonight there is a new series starting on PBS called america at a crossroads- it deals with muslims in america dealing with post 911 misapprehensions about islam
tonights subject is the formation of al qaeda and muslim extremists

i recommend it- learning is the best thing we can do- knowledge tends to wipe out old angers and prejudices

when we see each other as people and not 'others' we learn to be compassionate towards those whose views are different than our.

this is what i was hoping to establish and learn on this forum

here dave- look at this rabbi speaking-

right this minute im watching a pbs special about jewish persecution in nazi germany.

its all an effort to learn and understand

by the way dave-what efforts have YOU made to learn ANYTHING about the palestinians, or your muslim neighbors?

when you disagree with a persons politics you respond with angry insults, but will brook not the slightest critcism

what is the point of trying to be reasonable?

here, learn soemthing about your ownpeople and what they think

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/mediaclips/DombInterview.cfm?v=1QfgvDXsDds

what is the purpose of you saying this to me?

"And you do not view that as showing ignorance due to an inability to listen and learn?"

no dave- as ive indicated, im actively trying to find views that are reasonable.

how is that an inability to learn?
or worse ignorance?

why would you call someone names who is trying to learn?
wouldnt it be better if you offered some rational thoughts on the subject?

as for the 3 oaths- im not especially surprised you are nto aware of them, as youve shown no aptitude here for scriptural discussion.

so you insult one who actually tries to learn,
how can you expect anyone to work harder at finding an answer to understand your viewpoint,
when you wont bother to do anything to substantiate it.

but dont cry about anti-semitism every other post when you insult those who are open to dialogue and ask questions specifically TO LEARN
you shouldnt call me ignorant

thats just mean- it doesnt hide the fact that youve offered no reasons yourself

Victoria,

"no dave- i havent found any jewish people with a reasonable opinion about israel."

Except those who oppose Israel?

You have lived in LA and are in NYC and that is so?

How about the folks you know who share your views? Are they in the same place?

And you do not view that as showing ignorance due to an inability to listen and learn?

This was referred to several times a while back. I just got around to checking it out with the Talmud.

"What are these three oaths? One that Israel not “ascend the wall” [Rashi: together, by force]: one that the Holy One, Blessed be He, adjured Israel not to rebel against the nations of the world: and one that the Holy One, Blessed be He, adjured the nations of the world not to oppress Israel overmuch.
Bab. Talmud Ketubot 111a."

That is on several anti Israel sites. And its stupidity is oustanding. The debate in Babylon (Baghdad) was when there were Talmudic academies in Jerusalem and Baghdad. The issue was whether Jews in Israel should go to Babylon and Jews in Babylon go to Israel. The context is choosing between the academies. The recommendation was that Jews in Israel should stay in Israel and Jews in Babylon should stay in Babylon.

Per the Soncino edition.

The three adjurations were given by Rabbi Jose son of Rabbi Hanina.

1. Israel shall not go up [all together as if surrounded] by a wall.

2. Israel shall not rebel against the nations of the world.

3. God adjured the idolaters that they shall not oppress Israel too much.

That matches what the site says.

1. The children of Israel have not gone to Israel all together.

2. This is why Jews follow the laws of the nations they are in as long as they do not offend against God. That is the same God Christians and Mulsims worship as revealed in texts which they view as holy.

3. This is why the Arabs are in the mess they are in now.

After 1000 CE, rabbis have made various interpretations of that to address issues in the Diaspora. The mess with Sabbatai Zvi made rabbis very concerned about Jews taking up and moving to Israel on the advice of a would be Messiah. That has not happened. However there are Orthodox Jews who oppose the state of Israel on that basis.

Note that these are adjurations not oaths. And the third is to the nations not to the Jews. Jews have no control over whether the nations follow it. Clearly Jews are trying as hard as they can to convince the nations to follow it.

well, i dont like accusations dave, and try to keep away from them.

i found this statement that you made very biased and slanted and unfair-

"That does not mean each side is exactly equal in the above. Jews can freely discuss all kinds of things with little or no violence. Palestinians can not."

no dave- i havent found any jewish people with a reasonable opinion about israel.

like logical reasons that are apparent.

it always seems to be precluded by certain assumptions that non-jews dont hold.

if you know any good links id appreciate it.

i dont consider financial or military success to be indicators of any moral imperative.

i really am trying to understand- last night i watched a documentary dvd called protocols of zion by marc levin.

i was hoping for some edification, but the second half degenrated into pure muslim bashing and 911, and singing the star spangled banner at ground zero and whatever message there was to it, ended up pointing fingers and showing muslims like crazy maniacs.
it was a disappointment, but not unexpected.

if you have sources that are objective and present a clear statement without resorting to denigrating anyone- id be happy to see it.

dave we have women in black here every wednesday, and there are jewish women as well- but there arent any real israel love it or leave it types.

Victoria,

I thought you called me a bigot. Did I misunderstand you?

And living in NYC you can find no reasonable supporter of Israel? Or do I misunderstand you about that?

dave- THAT IS AN EXCERPT FROM YOUR POST!

YOU were the one doing the name calling!!!!!

Victoria,

That seems to be the whole basis for the reasoning many people use against Israel. Ignore the facts and pretend Palestinians are Jews and Jews are Nazis. The key is that you do not care that what you say does not fit the facts.

There is no logical way to deal with that kind of argument and name calling. So call people all of the names you like, ignore the facts, and imagine you and others like you are making the world a more peaceful place. I do not seek empty satisfaction such as that.

Victoria,

That seems to be the whole basis for the reasoning many people use against Israel. Ignore the facts and pretend Palestinians are Jews and Jews are Nazis. The key is that you do not care that what you say does not fit the facts.

There is no logical way to deal with that kind of argument and name calling. So call people all of the names you like, ignore the facts, and imagine you and others like you are making the world a more peaceful place. I do not to seek empty satisfaction such as that.

dave- its pretty clear what i did, indoctrinating people was not the issue-

that was your post, i just reversed the names so you could feel how truly bigoted a thing it is to claim.

as long as you keep thinking in such prejudiced extremes- how is it possible for you to be credible?

Victoria,

That is the kind of thinking that leads me to think folks like you are out to indoctrinate not discuss. You simply ignore facts. Where are Jews violently contesting things among themselves? And do you need me to help you find cases where Palestinians are? And how many Palestinians For Israel groups are there? Is it really true that no Palestinians anywhere can see Israel's side of things? And if so, what does it say about their readiness for true dialog?

dave - its statements like this that are so contrary to objectivity-

"That does not mean each side is exactly equal in the above. Palestinians can freely discuss all kinds of things with little or no violence. Jews can not."

would you agree that is a bigoted and extreme generalization of jews?

"That does not mean each side is exactly equal in the above. Jews can freely discuss all kinds of things with little or no violence. Palestinians can not."

its just as bigoted this way dave (which is what you wrote)

A reflexive there you go again being defensive and aggressive will not help the situation.

The interesting thing is that this is two way:

Someone talks about 15 million people controlling the world or Israel being racist and another person says that is anti-semitic. The person saying that "truth" about Jews and Israel dismisses the statement about anti-semitism as defensive and aggressive. That of course is no answer. So the person trying to make a point about anti-semitism dismisses the person attacking Israel as defensive and aggressive.

After endless repetitions of that, no one is any less ignorant than they were. This matter is handled by violence because there is massive ignorance and an aversion to carefully pursuing details and weighing probabilities that various allegations are correct. There is also an assumption by both sides that you can not trust the other side's sources of information.

There is much mutuality in these back and forth Pro Anti exchanges:

People on both sides are sure they are right.

[I am referring to many of the most active and energetic exponents. People like Dershowitz and Carter.]

People on both sides are sure their opponents are ignorant and thereby bigoted.

People on both sides endlessly repeat things from their side's collection of arguments.

People on both sides are sure they know what is going on in each other's heads.

That does not mean each side is exactly equal in the above. Jews can freely discuss all kinds of things with little or no violence. Palestinians can not. Free discussion advances truth and violence does not. So contrary to what folks like Carter think, the folks who agree with him reason less well and have less accurate information overall than the folks he says are ignorant. There is however still abundant ignorance.

One of the things that amazes me about Palestinians and their supporters is what they say about the lives of the Palestinians:

Listening to them you would think that Palestinians can accomplish nothing because they all suffer from massive Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome. They seem like a nation of victims who are far less able than Jews were when they were widely persecuted. Yet Palestinians do accomplish things. It is simply hard to find out what they are doing that is positive. You would think all Palestinians are alike but I know from the small amount of research I have done that some folks in some cities in the West Bank are much more successful than people in Gaza and the many refugee camps. It seems to me that there are two Nabluses. The thriving municipality and the camps. And I think that is a common pattern. Yet all we hear from Carter et. al. is about the horrors of the camps.

Israel's security measures are a mess that must be addressed. American Jews are often frustrated with the lack of creativity in what Israel is doing for security. But the people in Israel know what is going on with the Palestinians far better than occasional visitors like Carter or people like me who sit securely and read about it.

Pere,

Am I correct that you agree with me about the repetitive posts?

It seems to me that people who are not anti-semitic can say some of those things without thinking through what they are saying. How can you deal with that except by pointing out that what they have said could be construed as anti-semitic? And if it can be so construed, how can folks be outraged when someone thinks the person saying it is anti-semitic?

It is not as if most people give huge amounts of careful thought to everything they think and say. So it seems to me a person who feels maligned could give an explanation of why they say it and what they mean by it. A reflexive there you go again being defensive and aggressive will not help the situation.

dave I'm back...and here to help. Look anti-Semite hate talk is not what we need....As much as I disagree with some points about the politics of Israel. The kind of hate that can erupt is non productive... Dialog and peace is the answer...the Jews rule the world and the rhetoric that is behind that is wrong....I disagree with a lot of things but when people say things with a hateful undertone it just perpetuates the problem

Instead of yelling that the Jews do this and that ...which by the way is why Zionist felt that Israel was needed in the first place. We should find a common denominator and love everyone.

Stop Bigotry...in Israelis or anywhere.

Dave this is why using anti-semitism every time when criticizing Israel is dangerous because when we need it, it might fall on deaf ears....

Wow! Seven copies of the same anti-semitic post ostensibly from three different people. There is power.

I guess that is the kind of mild dissent that is not allowed a hearing except in obscure places like this Washington Post / Newsweek site. Ah the joys of power.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims, 1 billion Indian, 1 billion Chinese.

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews. India has the brain power, look at US softwar industry, and China - they make every thing, yes every thing for the world.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped. China is evil without human rights, India they are half communist eat with hands, so Jews is the only friend of America.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers. China is the richest nation soon in terms of production and India the the power at the door.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Jews conspricy or whatever you say the fact Americans are naive to talk they are scare to death to be critical of Israel or Jews, they are same as early days Europeans afrid to talk, if one leader like Jimmy Carter comes to power that knows the facts about Jews or Ford (found of Ford motors) will be change todays Jews control of American power and the bad consequence. You can fool some time somebody you can not fool all time every body.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out of the game, who wins, China, - you stupid.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims, 1 billion Indian, 1 billion Chinese.

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews. India has the brain power, look at US softwar industry, and China - they make every thing, yes every thing for the world.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped. China is evil without human rights, India they are half communist eat with hands, so Jews is the only friend of America.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers. China is the richest nation soon in terms of production and India the the power at the door.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Jews conspricy or whatever you say the fact Americans are naive to talk they are scare to death to be critical of Israel or Jews, they are same as early days Europeans afrid to talk, if one leader like Jimmy Carter comes to power that knows the facts about Jews or Ford (found of Ford motors) will be change todays Jews control of American power and the bad consequence. You can fool some time somebody you can not fool all time every body.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out of the game, who wins, China, - you stupid.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims, 1 billion Indian, 1 billion Chinese.

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews. India has the brain power, look at US softwar industry, and China - they make every thing, yes every thing for the world.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped. China is evil without human rights, India they are half communist eat with hands, so Jews is the only friend of America.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers. China is the richest nation soon in terms of production and India the the power at the door.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Jews conspricy or whatever you say the fact Americans are naive to talk they are scare to death to be critical of Israel or Jews, they are same as early days Europeans afrid to talk, if one leader like Jimmy Carter comes to power that knows the facts about Jews or Ford (found of Ford motors) will be change todays Jews control of American power and the bad consequence. You can fool some time somebody you can not fool all time every body.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out of the game, who wins, China, - you stupid.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims, 1 billion Indian, 1 billion Chinese.

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews. India has the brain power, look at US softwar industry, and China - they make every thing, yes every thing for the world.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped. China is evil without human rights, India they are half communist eat with hands, so Jews is the only friend of America.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers. China is the richest nation soon in terms of production and India the the power at the door.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Jews conspricy or whatever you say the fact Americans are naive to talk they are scare to death to be critical of Israel or Jews, they are same as early days Europeans afrid to talk, if one leader like Jimmy Carter comes to power that knows the facts about Jews or Ford (found of Ford motors) will be change todays Jews control of American power and the bad consequence. You can fool some time somebody you can not fool all time every body.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out of the game, who wins, China, - you stupid.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims, 1 billion Indian, 1 billion Chinese.

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews. India has the brain power, look at US softwar industry, and China - they make every thing, yes every thing for the world.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped. China is evil without human rights, India they are half communist eat with hands, so Jews is the only friend of America.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers. China is the richest nation soon in terms of production and India the the power at the door.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Jews conspricy or whatever you say the fact Americans are naive to talk they are scare to death to be critical of Israel or Jews, they are same as early days Europeans afrid to talk, if one leader like Jimmy Carter comes to power that knows the facts about Jews or Ford (found of Ford motors) will be change todays Jews control of American power and the bad consequence. You can fool some time somebody you can not fool all time every body.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out of the game, who wins, China, - you stupid.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims, 1 billion Indian, 1 billion Chinese.

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews. India has the brain power, look at US softwar industry, and China - they make every thing, yes every thing for the world.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped. China is evil without human rights, India they are half communist eat with hands, so Jews is the only friend of America.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers. China is the richest nation soon in terms of production and India the the power at the door.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Jews conspricy or whatever you say the fact Americans are naive to talk they are scare to death to be critical of Israel or Jews, they are same as early days Europeans afrid to talk, if one leader like Jimmy Carter comes to power that knows the facts about Jews or Ford (found of Ford motors) will be change todays Jews control of American power and the bad consequence. You can fool some time somebody you can not fool all time every body.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out of the game, who wins, China, - you stupid.

You can be critical of every thing from communism, terrorism, government, gays even the creator God who gave us the very knowledge but you dare not be critical of the mighty Jews people or state of Israel.

I do not understand why American's love the Jews so much that they follow all their orders blindly, get their sons die for their war, give all their money and gets nothing but the whole world yes the rest of the world including the Europeans hate them.

Americans are the real looser may be some day there would be another painful repeat of history in European Jews.

Look at the numbers:

1. Jews populatioin is only about 15 million and rest of the world over 6 billion people, what is the percentage.

2. Over 1 billion Muslims

3. Muslims sits over oil and they should control the world policy but who does it by proxy - the Jews.

5. In America they are about 5 million Jews but 10 million Muslims - where they are, brand them terrorist so Jews can be worshipped.

6. 5 Billion in guns and money goes to Israel more than the rest of the world gets from the USA annually, why..

7. What America get in return, enemy of the Arabs, lost of friends in Europe, Bin Laden, 600,000 killed in Iraq (Jews wanted Saddan to be killed). 120,000 death in Afghanistan so oil pine can go to Israel from central Asia. World Trade centre death of 3000 Americans and humiliation of America around the world when their president travels.

8. What America really gets is nothing, Israel got no oil, no population like Muslim world of 1 billion consumers.

9. American Jews dominated media would loss controld someday the Internet will bring the truth to every American home and the the history will repeat again as in Europe, this is sad for humanity but this about greed and drive for money. Poor America they do not understand what Europeans knew long ago, but obviously killing is not an option but they should choose the right friend it should the the Indians, Chinese and Muslims, they all controld brain, money and old together not the Jews.

Choose wrong friend in long run, you run out who wins, China, - you stupid.

"then the beginning of peaceful dialogue starts with you admitting the palestinans have a right to exist."

Palestinians have the right to exist, flourish as best they may, call on all of us to help them flourish, and define themeselves as a separate people. Which Jewish leaders have objected to that?

"and to concede that israel has interfered with their rights to exist by cordoning them off into refugee camps for 50 years."

That is not my understanding. Jenin and Nablus are cities and there are refugee camps there. I do not think Israel has forced people to stay in the camps rather than integrating themselves into the cities. Why haven't they integrated themselves into cities? Nablus seems like a well run, reasonably prosperous place.

"or at least at some point admitting that israel has not always been fair in its treatment of palestinians."

That is so. Which Jewish leaders deny that?

"or at the very least, to stop denying that they are even a race- or a cohesive body that deserves recognition."

I do not see how you can define the people you refer to as a race. Race has been used to refer to groups such as Caucasians, Blacks, and Asians based on physical differences. I think you mean ethnicity. This is from the Britannica:

"Although they are easily and often confused, race and racism must be distinguished from ethnicity and ethnocentrism. While extreme ethnocentrism may take the same offensive form and may have the same dire consequences as extreme racism, there are significant differences between the two concepts. Ethnicity, which relates to culturally contingent features, characterizes all human groups. It refers to a sense of identity and membership in a group that shares common language, cultural traits (values, beliefs, religion, customs, etc.), and a sense of a common history. All humans are members of some cultural (ethnic) group, sometimes more than one. Most such groups feel—to varying degrees of intensity—that their way of life, their foods, dress, habits, beliefs, values, and so forth, are superior to those of other groups.

The most significant quality of ethnicity is the fact that it is unrelated to biology and can be flexible and transformable. People everywhere can change or enhance their ethnicity by learning about or assimilating into another culture."

The Palestianians have developed a unique ethnicity just as the Jews have. So you could argue have New Yorkers, Brooklynites, Chicagoans, San Franciscans and others. It is a very loose term.

It would be helpful to stop talking as if the Palestinians are black and the Jews are white.

"Race, on the other hand, is a form of identity that is perceived as innate and unalterable. Ethnicity may be transient and even superficial. Race is thought to be profound and grounded in biological realities. Ethnocentrism is based in a belief in the superiority of one's own culture over others, and it too may be transient and superficial. Racism is the belief in and promotion of the racial worldview described above. Ethnocentrism holds skin colour and other physical features to be irrelevant as long as one is a member of the same culture, or becomes so. The racial worldview holds that, regardless of behaviour or cultural similarities, a member of an inferior race (who is usually perceived to be so by means of physical features) can never be accepted. Race is an invented, fictional form of identity; ethnicity is based on the reality of cultural similarities and differences and the interests that they represent."

"race." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 11 Apr. 2007 http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-234663

good dave- keep it simple.

then the beginning of peaceful dialogue starts with you admitting the palestinans have a right to exist.

and to concede that israel has interfered with their rights to exist by cordoning them off into refugee camps for 50 years.

or at least at some point admitting that israel has not always been fair in its treatment of palestinians.

or at the very least, to stop denying that they are even a race- or a cohesive body that deserves recognition.

i guess the whole process would start if at some point you admit the palestinians exist, and stop denying they are valid.

Pere,

Everyone except some of the militia and settlers sees the madness of this. Most Jews have seen that for years.

What I am trying to do is far more difficult. I am trying to get at the rationality of it. I do that by saying what my analysis shows and trying to figure out why people who are very sure, based on what to me is insufficient evidence, are the way they are.

That is why I will not supply generalizations to match anti Israel generalizations. Dershowitz and Carter are both brilliant and decent men with much skill at argument and they have been getting nowhere for years via the competing generalizations route. Note that I am not blanket quoting Pro Israel sources because they feel they have no choice but to respond to generalizations with counter generalizations.

This is Marshak's Law. Simple ways of looking at things drive complexity and nuance out of the marketplace of ideas.

Thank you Victoria...peace unto you too :}

peace to you pere', your posts have been focused and informative.

Dave I have many friends who disagree and whom I care for an respect very much...my Jewish friends and my friends who are very fundmentally in favor of Israel and you. I think you have many valid and worth while points..It is not all black and white and thats my point. I feel that a true peace will evolve when all sides of this conflict see the madness of it. But, since this is a post about Israel I have tried to stay focused on that.

I really wish you peace. Even though you and I disagree dramatically on many parts i would never wish you anything but happiness and peace. I dont see violence of hatred of others as productive.

I worry for all of our children. But I do believe that all children need better from the adults in this conflict.

this will be my last oost...Shalom and thanks for all your perspectives.

Pere,

My attempts at dialog here clearly are not working. Is there anyone anywhere who disagrees with you about Israel and you view as promoting dialog?

Dave I wish you and all those you hold important peace. I realize that divergent views are ok. Those postings were very nice. The problem that I have with this conflict is the lack of middle ground from powerful groups such as the fellowship of Christians and Jews and AIPAC etc. They seem to only project their side of the conflict. I know there are many Jewish Groups and others promoting dialog. That is the only way to resolve this conflict. it won't come with the extremes at any end of the spectrum. As to you Shalom and peace.

I hope you can criticize any government and not be labeled, freedom of expression is the way to peace. Israel has many vibrant voices reaching out, we just need to hear a balanced approach here.

"Come, Come again
Whoever you are
Whether you are infidel,idolater or wanderer
Whether you have broken your vows a hundred times
Ours is not a caravan of despair
This is the gate of hope
Come, come yet again, come"

"Our mother is love! Our father is love!
We are born from love! We are love!
All loves constitute a bridge leading to the divine love.
To love human beings means to love GOD."

"When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

When actions come from another section,
the feeling disappears.

Don’t let others lead you. They may be blind,
or worse, vultures. Reach for the rope
of God. And what is that?

Putting aside self-will.

Because of willfulness people sit in jail.
From willfulness, the trapped birds’ wings are tied.
From willfulness, the fish sizzles in the skillet.

Don’t insist on going where you think you want to go.
Ask the way to the Spring.

Your living pieces will form a harmony.

There is moving palace that floats through the air,
with balconies and clear water running in every part of it,
infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent."

Rumi

"Lord of Peace, Divine Ruler, to whom peace belongs! Master of Peace, Creator of all things!

May it be thy will to put an end to war and bloodshed on earth, and to spread a great and wonderful peace over the whole world, so that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Help us and save us all, and let us cling tightly to the virtue of peace. Let there be a truly great peace between every person and their fellow, and between husband and wife, and let there be no discord between people even in their hearts.

Let us never shame any person on earth, great or small. May it be granted unto us to fulfill Thy Commandment to "Love thy neighbor as thyself," with all our hearts and souls and bodies and possessions.

And let it come to pass in our time as it is written, "And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. I will drive the wild beasts from the land, and neither shall the sword go through your land.

God who is peace, bless us with peace !!!

(Attributed to Rabbi Nachman ben Feiga of Breslov, 1773-1810)"

in honor of our christian friends, i have laways loved this poem-

Saint Francis's Prayer for Peace!

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love:
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not
So much seek to be consoled
As to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life.

Saint Francis

What about these folks? I don't know much about them. I don't think they are AIPAC approved.

"The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews was founded in 1983 to promote understanding and cooperation between Jews and Christians and to build broad support for Israel and other shared concerns. Our vision is that Jews and Christians will reverse their 2,000-year history of discord and replace it with a relationship marked by dialogue, understanding, respect and cooperation.

Based in Chicago and Jerusalem, The Fellowship operates under the leadership of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, and is governed by an independent board of directors, people from both faith groups who share our strong belief in building bridges between the Christian and Jewish communities."

This is from the Nablus website. Why is Nablus unique?

"Nablus Municipality is currently considered one of the largest organizations in Palestine in terms of volume of services it provides, the projects it carries out, and the number of local staff it employs. Nablus Municipality is one of the major employers in Palestine and it is the main driving force behind development process of the Nablus city. Among its major accomplishments are the establishment of Child Cultural Centers, public parks, the preservation of Nablus cultural and historic heritage project namely; remodeling of old city, and the commercial center which is considered one of the economic and architectural land marks in Palestine. During this period, the city was suffering the lack of water resources crisis especially in the summer time. The municipal council was determined to take the challenge through digging water wells to meet not only the need of Nablus citizens, but it also provides water to the neighboring towns and villages."

Victoria,

Well, I was talking about the things you have been posting today and in the last few days not just the one post you wrote. And you did say:

"even when dave tries to take the conversation elsewhere-"

Which is just one of a long string of making it about me statements while you avoid the ideas I am talking about.

"dave, do you know what the 3 oaths are?"

That is from the Talmud. The Talmud is a collection of arguments about and explanations of the Mishnah and the Torah. The Mishnah recorded an oral tradition that went back to Aaron. There are many arguments and all are recorded. If your view was the only correct view, there would be no Israel. The Mishnah and Torah do not have the 3 oaths.

dave- i know for sure now you dont read my posts- heres what i wrote-

"sorry i started a thought but cant elaborate right now ill come back to it- "

i wasnt asking you anything-
i didnt criticize anything-

i was bringing up a point that i started earlier-
a continuity of thought

how on EARTH when it had nothing to do with you do you interpret that im criticizing or insulting you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Why do you think it advances your cause to continually criticize me and insult me? Are you proving to yourselves and those who think as you do that all who disagree with you are inferior? I have encountered that before. It seems like the worst possible way to try to peacefully settle anything."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i wasnt even addressing anything to you!

where is the insult????

honestly dave- go read what i posted-

i asked you if you wanted to go from a scriptural base- you posted some very very basic scripture-

i started getting a tiny bit into it-

if you dont want to or cant do scripture- just say so!!!

mercy what are you going on about??

or if your posting something pere said- identify it!

im not pere!

conversatins arent catchall to whom it may concern

my goodness if you dont want to do scripture fine! just say so- this post makes no sense at all-

whats this all about?
"hen we get Muslims thinking they are experts on the Talmud and can reasdily understand what Jews spend lifetimes figuring out."

what kind of bigoted statement is that?

if you cant handle scripture - ok- but theres no call for any assumptions you make-

you really REALLY dont know anything about my background- at all-

i guess your philosophy is to be on the offensive so people must defend themsleves- or else pretend an injury that never happened-

either way theyre both distractions from the conversation.

get a grip dave- no one is attacking you-
and insulting someone pre-emptively is just ill mannered.

"However, Dave you seem to always turn this into a one sided dialog. Where I believe that it needs to be resolved by both parties. You always rationalize and your Bias is very evident."

That is why there are no useful discussions about these things by anyone. People agressively misread what is said to them just as you do with what I write. That forces people such as Dershowitz to make the case for Israel to deal with all the misinformation that is pushed as truth. And that feeds into the idea that these matters are simpler than they are. Then we get Muslims thinking they are experts on the Talmud and can reasdily understand what Jews spend lifetimes figuring out.

"I also find it interesting that you bash Carter and say he is an anti-Semite"

That is not true. You can not distinguish between the man and the statements he makes. Stupid statements do not show he is stupid about everything.

Victoria and Pere,

Why do you think it advances your cause to continually criticize me and insult me? Are you proving to yourselves and those who think as you do that all who disagree with you are inferior? I have encountered that before. It seems like the worst possible way to try to peacefully settle anything.

"Your hatred for the Palestinians is very evident in your posts. You deny their existence and perpetuate the party line that Israel can do no wrong."

That is Jimmy Carter bias. Those who disgree with him must hate the Palestinians. He can not conceive of the possibility that he could simply be wrong about some things.

I do not deny their existence. I question when all the Arabs who live in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel and only those Arabs came to be referred to as the Palestinians. And you have given no answer. In fact your post shows you do not even recognize that I have asked the question.

Are we going to go back and forth like this with your accusations getting wilder and wilder?

"You continue to propose that Arabs are evil and they were just squatting for 2000 years and that they could be absorbed by other..liken to ethnic cleansing....That Israel is only for Jews....forget the Christians that were once Jews or the Muslims that were also converted..."

I have not said that. You are talking to an image in your head. What widely respected Jewish leader has said that?

sorry i started a thought but cant elaborate right now ill come back to it- even when dave tries to take the conversation elsewhere-

Dt. 15:5 If you but heed the voice of the LORD, your God, and carefully observe all these commandments which I enjoin on you today, 6you will lend to many nations, and borrow from none; you will rule over many nations, and none will rule over you, since the LORD, your God, will bless you as he promised.

clearly this is not the case with israel which is millions upon millions of dollars in debt to the united states, of which it pays none back, even the interest alone amounts to millions.

The ten commandments is one of the writings that the three religions adhere to. Since you so frequently mention old testament writings I believe then ..."Thou shall not kill" is the standard we all should adhere to..And you can make a case for converting others homes...

The eviction of others from their homes is an interesting phenomena and modern day Israel is where people were displaced from their homes... as stated earlier by force or psychological means. Since evangelical Christians and Zionists claim that Israel (modern) is a biblical right; than how are they going to reconcile the fact that their actions are against other people. Thus violating the commandments that they share in common with those who they are violating.

I know that on the other side they are not holding up their part either.

However, Dave you seem to always turn this into a one sided dialog. Where I believe that it needs to be resolved by both parties. You always rationalize and your Bias is very evident. I believe in a two state solution where there is equal opportunities for both sides to thrive.

I also find it interesting that you bash Carter and say he is an anti-Semite, then you quote him ... Your hatred for the Palestinians is very evident in your posts. You deny their existence and perpetuate the party line that Israel can do no wrong. I believe in a Israel is free abd can be a home to all people. Also one that is not evolving into military state and where each of their children ( Arab and Jewish)grow into loving adults. You continue to propose that Arabs are evil and they were just squatting for 2000 years and that they could be absorbed by other..liken to ethnic cleansing....That Israel is only for Jews....forget the Christians that were once Jews or the Muslims that were also converted...

I keep saying PEACE is the answer and you keep avoiding it saying that I think my way is the only way...I reality I believe that the only way is through peace and a peace that is realistic. There seems to be open minded people in Israel and they want a better life. In the US those who want a just peace for both sides get labeled anti-
Israel a code word so anti-Semites. The problem is I love the Jewish people and I support Israel's right to exist, But,my thoughts are if is no peace for the Palestinians how can one have hope for a better future.

The ten commandments is one of the writings that the three religions adhere to. Since you so frequently mention old testament writings I believe then ..."Thou shall not kill" is the standard we all should adhere to..And you can make a case for converting others homes...

The eviction of others from their homes is an interesting phenomena and modern day Israel is where people were displaced from their homes... as stated earlier by force or psychological means. Since evangelical Christians and Zionists claim that Israel (modern) is a biblical right; than how are they going to reconcile the fact that their actions are against other people. Thus violating the commandments that they share in common with those who they are violating.

I know that on the other side they are not holding up their part either.

However, Dave you seem to always turn this into a one sided dialog. Where I believe that it needs to be resolved by both parties. You always rationalize and your Bias is very evident. I believe in a two state solution where there is equal opportunities for both sides to thrive.

I also find it interesting that you bash Carter and say he is an anti-Semite, then you quote him ... Your hatred for the Palestinians is very evident in your posts. You deny their existence and perpetuate the party line that Israel can do no wrong. I believe in a Israel that is not evolving into military state and where each of their children ( Arab and Jewish)grow into loving adults. You continue to propose that Arabs are evil and they were just squatting for 2000 years and that they could be absorbed by other..liken to ethnic cleansing....That Israel is only for Jews....forget the Christians that were once Jews or the Muslims that were also converted...

I keep saying PEACE is the answer and you keep avoiding it saying that I think my way is the only way...I reality I believe that the only way is through peace and a peace that is realistic. There seems to be open minded people in Israel and they want a better life. In the US those who want a just peace for both sides get labeled anti-
Israel a code word so anti-Semites. The problem is I love the Jewish people and I support Israel's right to exist, But,my thoughts are if is no peace for the Palestinians how can one have hope for a better future.

yes dave, were all pretty familiar with these, thats why i requested commentaries post diaspora-

this is an easy watch-

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/mediaclips/DombInterview.cfm?v=1QfgvDXsDds

dave, do you know what the 3 oaths are?

you know that god asked abraham to make a choice between gehenna and salvation for his people?

the choice of salvation carried with it an indeterminate time of dispersion which could only be rectified by god-

there are certain conditions that must be present for this to happen- the coming of mossiach and subsequent rebuilding of the temple-

this is it in a nutshell-

the diaspora was a way of protecting the jewish people from their enemies if they were concentrated physically it would be easier to decimate them, also they were spreading in their exile te words of god.

n additional factor that contributed to the negation of practical efforts to return to Zion was the updating of the Jeremian paradigm( 22 'They will be taken to Babylon and there they will remain until the day I come for them,' declares the LORD. 'Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.') "

Footnotes: by which Jews were encouraged to be passive and await G-d’s appointed time to bring the people back from exile. Strictly speaking, there was no discouragement against individual Jews acting on the strength of their feelings and going to live out their life in “Zion.” The problem, from a theological point of view, was viewed in collective terms. The community as a whole, it was taught, was forbidden to take collective steps to return. To do so would be to rebel against G-d, whose sole decision it was, it will be remembered, to decide on the date of the deliverance and the return.

There were a number of ways that the “prohibition” against the return was explained. The most popular seems to be that invoked by the three oaths which Israel was said to have taken when they accepted the punishment of exile. The details (and the text most popularly quoted) are from the Babylonian Talmud.

What are these three oaths? One that Israel not “ascend the wall” [Rashi: together, by force]: one that the Holy One, Blessed be He, adjured Israel not to rebel against the nations of the world: and one that the Holy One, Blessed be He, adjured the nations of the world not to oppress Israel overmuch.
Bab. Talmud Ketubot 111a.

yes dave, were all pretty familiar with these, thats why i requested commentaries post diaspora-

this is an easy watch-

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/mediaclips/DombInterview.cfm?v=1QfgvDXsDds

Pere,

At times like this it seems you and Victoria occasionally post just to fill up space.

I posted what Victoria asked me to post. Why did you post what you did?

What is the plight of the Palestinians who are in exile from Palestine?

Why do so many Palestinians still live in refugee camps rather than cities and villages?

What are the chief Palestinian industries? What do the top fifty Palestinian corporations do?

Do you think it is right for the Palestinian government to hold Gil Shalit hostage and tell Israel they must free duly convicted murderers to get him back? Where is the justness to that? What norm of behavior does that fit?

"All because one group believes they are right"

It is not that simple. There are at least thirty different groups who are all sure they are right. You have an unknown number of armed Palestinian groups, several different Hamas leaderships, several Hezbollah leaderships, political parties in Israel, religious groups, governments, and advocacy groups.

So lets agree we can quote scipture...The point is that the Palistians are dispossed peoples like their cousins the Jews before them....All people should not kill...and when a bomb goes off whether it a cluster bomb or a suicide bomb people die. All because one group believes they are right...That is not part of the covenent...

Exodus 20:2-17 Deuteronomy 5:6-21
2I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 6I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
3you shall have no other gods before me. 7you shall have no other gods before me.
4You shall not make for yourself an image, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 8You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 9You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, 10but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 11You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. 12Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13For six days you shall labour and do all your work. 14But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 15Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
12Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 16Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13You shall not murder. 17You shall not murder.
14You shall not commit adultery. 18Neither shall you commit adultery.
15You shall not steal. 19Neither shall you steal.
16You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 20Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour.
17You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; 21Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife.
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or

Psalm 89:

[3] I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,
[4] Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.

Christians view that as a mandate for them because Jesus was a descendant of David. Jews are sure it is about them.

Pss.105
[8] He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.
[9] Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;
[10] And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant:

Ezek.37
[26] Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.

From Exodus:

[2] And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD:
[3] And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
[4] And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.
[5] And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant.

[5] Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:

From Leviticus:

[42] Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.
[44] And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God.
[45] But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

From Judges:

[1] And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

From First Chronicles:

[15] Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;
[16] Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac;
[17] And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant,

This is from Chapter 17 of Genesis:

"[2] And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.
[3] And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,
[4] As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
[5] Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
[6] And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
[7] And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
[8] And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
[9] And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.
[10] This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
[11] And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
[12] And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
[13] He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
[14] And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.
[15] And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.
[16] And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
[17] Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?
[18] And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
[19] And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
[20] And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
[21] But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year."

Jews view that as Brit Olam, an eternal covenant, The Qu'ran says it was actually with Ishmael and Genesis is wrong. Many Christians have held that when Jews rejected Jesus, the Covenant ended and a New Covenant was made with Christians which superseded the Old Covenant. Many Christians inculding the Pope no longer believe that. They agree that it is Brit Olam. So why should Jews give up the idea because it irks most Muslims and many Christians?

That got truncated. My first post is being held for approval.

"1 a : a statement offered in explanation or justification

b : a rational ground or motive

c : a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact

d : the thing that makes some fact intelligible : CAUSE the reason for earthquakes the real reason why he wanted me to stay -- Graham Greene"

Victoria,

Your definition of reason says it must make sense to my opponents. It only must make sense to me to be a reasonable reason. However my reasons make sense to many people. If people like Dershowitz can't come up with reasons that you view as reasons, I don't think I can do better.

"1 a : a statement offered in explanation or justification b : a rational ground or motive c : a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact d : the thing that makes some fact intelligible : CAUSE "

just so were very clear-

if you disagree on any of the usages of this word speak now-

Synonyms 1. purpose, end, aim, object, objective. Reason, cause, motive are terms for a circumstance (or circumstances) which brings about or explains certain results. A reason is an explanation of a situation or circumstance which made certain results seem possible or appropriate: The reason for the robbery was the victim's display of his money. The cause is the way in which the circumstances produce the effect, that is, make a specific action seem necessary or desirable: The cause was the robber's extreme need of money. A motive is the hope, desire, or other force which starts the action (or an action) in an attempt to produce specific results: The motive was to get money to buy food for his family. 2. excuse, rationalization. 3. understanding, intellect, mind, intelligence. 10. persuade.
—Usage note The construction reason is because is criticized in a number of usage guides: The reason for the long delays was because the costs greatly exceeded the original estimates. One objection to this construction is based on its redundancy: the word because (literally, by cause) contains within it the meaning of reason; thus saying the reason is because is like saying “The cause is by cause,” which would never be said. A second objection is based on the claim that because can introduce only adverbial clauses and that reason is requires completion by a noun clause. Critics would substitute that for because in the offending construction: The reason for the long delays in completing the project was that the costs. … Although the objections described here are frequently raised, reason is because is still common in almost all levels of speech and occurs often in edited writing as well.
A similar charge of redundancy is made against the reason why, which is also a well-established idiom: The reason why the bill failed to pass was the defection of three key senators.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

so cause producing effect?
because?

so, you quoted presidents but there were no REASONS that validated their statements

their statements were simply personal opinions- which is fine for most purposes- but since we cannot agree on their intentions or even the value of their personal opinions, they remain just that- opinions without validating basis- or reason.

for the purposes of our conversation reasons and delving into intentions are the key element-

without that- everyting remains conflicting opinions-

there has to be a logical reason why an opinion is to be considered substantial.

instead of "it seems to mes" which fly past each other- the conversation could posit a-b-c-
ISTM this- because of -that.

so for instance- if you ask me why i think the jewish people temporarily lost their status-
i can tell you my sources in a logical way- you can reply to the sources and say A is wrong because- etc---

that way it is clear and direct- not muddied on drowning in misunderstandings-

this is a most important part of any discussion where 2 separate views are held-

a few months ago my husband told me aisha-(the wife of the Prophet(pbuh) was 16 or 18 when she married Muhammad(pbuh), but he didnt tell me his sources, so i didnt accept this until i researched it myself and have done so to my satisfaction so that i can present it coherently to others with a great deal of sources cited to support my statement.

something like that

thats why i requested scriptural support dave-
if you like, i can provide scriptural support to the counter of the concept that the chosen status is no longer extant- i am trying to be delicate dave-
if you want to get into scripture wars- thats alright but i prefer not to-

thats why i asked for scriptural references (past genesis- obviously- there are scriptures and commentators about the diaspora-

thats all-
i havent had a chance to look at the posts after that as ive no time right now- i just caught your question asking what references-

as i posted before-
"
i will not be satisfied if you just disagree- i thought it was a given in judaism today- none ofmy jewish friends held the belief that you do-

so if you could provide the references for that id appreciate it."

this is not an issue that can be dealt with without explicit and specific sources.

"EER is dedicated to the development of a plasma based thermal treatment technology for environmentally friendly disposal of waste materials.

EER is an Israel registered company controlled by SFK group of companies which holds 55% of EER together with Japanese and Korean associates. The remaining 45% is held by Israeli and foreign investors and three top level Russian scientists.

EER is headed by Evgeny P. Velikhov, member of Russian Academy of Sciences and Honorary Chairman Itschak Shrem, who is also chairman of SFK Group (the controlling shareholder of EER).

One of the main problems of Waste Management is the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), which along with Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste (LILRW) and Biomedical Waste (MW), is the present focus of EER's activity."

From the Library of Congress:

"Dormant War
Israelis traditionally viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a struggle for survival, convinced that even one military defeat would mean the end of their country. National defense became the first priority, with proportionately more human and material resources devoted to defense than in any other nation in the world. Israelis regarded major conflicts, such as occurred in 1967 and 1973, as "rounds" or battles in a continuous war. Even when it was not engaged in outright combat with its Arab enemies, Israel remained in what General Yitzhak Rabin, who became minister of defense in 1984, called a "dormant war" that, "like a volcano," could erupt with little warning into a major conflagration."

Here are some quotes to add to the mix:

""American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted. President Bill Clinton

"The survival of Israel is not a political issue, it is a moral imperative. That is my deeply held belief and it is the belief that is shared by the vast majority of the American people...a strong secure Israel is not just in Israel's interest. It's in the interest of the United States and in the interest of the entire free world." President Jimmy Carter

"My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage." President Gerald Ford.

"Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life." President Lyndon B. Johnson

"Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom." President John F. Kennedy

"I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization." President Harry S. Truman"

I do not view those men as anyone's dupes. That does not mean we give Israel a blank check.

At this point let's look at what Dershowitz has to say:

"The United Nations tragically has become a mega bomb for bigotry against Israel. If a space alien from another planet were to come down to earth and land at the General Assembly of the United Nations, or at some American college campuses, or many an urban capital, and have to report back to the distant galaxy from which he came, he'd have to report this is a wonderful planet with great countries that love peace. Like Syria, which is on the Security Council. Or Libya, that chairs the Human Rights Commission. But there's this one country, this evil nation that's been condemned by the UN more than any other country or all other countries combined. If the spaceship landed on the Berkeley campus, all the canards and untruths about Israel--genocide, apartheid, all the claims you hear so often, would be heard. And that's the tragedy.

And that's why I had to write The Case For Israel. It's my least favorite book, I have to tell you. It's the book nobody wants to write. Nobody has to write the Case for Canada or the Case for Spain or the Case for Australia. There's so much lying on college campuses today, so many untruths, so many legalese falsities being directed against Israel. But the impetus to write the Case For Israel came when the divestiture campaign began at Harvard and Berkeley and many of our college campuses. No members of the law school faculty, nor of the medical school faculty, nor the business school signed, but many at the other schools and departments signed the petition.

What did it call for? It called for no further investments in Israeli industries. What are Israel's main industries? It's not Jaffa oranges, it's high tech, life saving medical equipment, like kidney dialysis machines. Israel per capita saves more lives than any other country in the world.

I said cutting off this industry was immoral, so I challenged one of the leading pro-divestment professors at one of the Harvard colleges to debate me in front of his students. I challenged him to debate the morality of signing the petition to divest from Israel, but not from North Korea, not Cuba, not China, not Libya, not from Iraq in those days, not the Sudan -- only Israel. This was a man who taught the Christian approaches to the Old Testament. He said to me "Professor Dershowitz, my knowledge of the Middle East ended with the death of Moses." I invited those students to see me, watch me debate him or a surrogate. When nobody showed to take his position, I set the petition on a chair as a token surrogate and we had a dialog."

That is a symbol for what we are doing here and what we are doing here in microcosm mimics what Chomsky, Carter, and Dershowitz are doing in the skies far above us. I am not sure we are doing that much worse than they are despite their cosmic brilliance.

"Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which an Arab can file a case against his country in the Supreme Court. Israel's Supreme Court is among the finest courts in the world today. It enforces the rule of law on a daily basis against inevitable abuses that occur when a nation is at war."

Lies?

"In 1989, Justice Brennan, perhaps the most liberal justice in America's court, went to Israel at the invitation of Justice Aharon Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court. Brennan said, "God forbid that terrorism should ever come to the shores of the United States. At least we in America have the model to help balance the needs of security against the needs of liberty. That model is Israel.""

Another man duped by AIPAC?

"Enough of the shouting, enough of the polemics, enough of the extremism, enough of the ignorant comparisons to Nazism or to apartheid. Enough of the thoroughly non-intellectual sloganeering. Let's have a real intellectual discussion, let's have a real conversation. Let's have a real case.

But you can't buy that case unless there's elimination of the extremist rhetoric -- this sense that Israel is demonized, de-legitimized in the world. In fact, the extreme criticism makes it hard to get the nuances of criticism of both sides. And what happens is each side gets polemical views and that doesn't make progress toward peace.

So I ask those in the progressive movement, who support feminism and civil liberties, -- the kind of political theories I've supported all my life-- to come join an effort to support Israel and support Palestine. To support a democratic Palestinian state to be sure. Take the position you want on unilateralism, or on the fence; they are issues about which reasonable people can disagree. Israelis disagree."

That seems reasonable. You would think people like Carter and Dershowitz could make it happen. But they do not. They can't even talk to each other. Some example that sets.

Victoria,

References for what? I showed you that contrary to what you have been saying over and over and over again, I have given reasons. Nor is that the first time I did so. And based on what you do when I give reasons it is clear that your repeated postings do not arise out of a desire to learn reasons. You may have heard them all before. Yet just yesterday you were insisting you have never heard any. So what is your problem with the word reasons that has created such a great fuss?

as i expressed dave- references- you are describing something i think everyone is pretty well aware of-

"Dave Marshak :

Reasons for giving Israel some aid:

Israel is a partner with us in various endeavors.

Their interests match ours.

They are a valuable trading partner.

We have made various long term commitments to Israel and it is in our interest to live up to them.

That does not address the amount. I have not studied this enough to suggest ways to fine tune that. I would guess I could make suggestions were I to study the matter.

March 21, 2007 3:48 PM"

Victoria,

The Covenant with Noah is with all people since all are descended from Noah. There are righteous people in every nation and there are Jews who are far from righteous. This is not Christianity. The righteous from all nations are praised and rewarded. And those who are not get no pass because they are Jewish.

The Covenant with Abraham is taken by Jews to be fulfilled in his descendents through Isaac and by Arabs is fulfilled through Ishmael, who they believe they are descended from. Depending on whether you are Muslim or not, The Arabs are the Chosen People or the Jews are the Chosen People.

That is in Genesis. It is a key sacred text in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It says what it says and can not be discarded or changed.

Some Christians say they are the Chosen People because God changed his mind and discarded the Jews as unworthy. That makes it seem like Jesus was a failure as a human teacher even though he was great as an object of worship. So many Christians don't buy it.

The Covenant gave Israel to the Jewish people as long as they followed the commandments. So there is a theory that Jews were driven out because they did not follow the commandments. That did not change the Covenant. Eternal means just that; and the Covenant with Abraham is eternal.

Now you can treat Genesis as Jewish nonsense and discard it. Even then it is not contemporary Jewish nonsense. The stories come from the Dawn of History and are as they are.

Jews do not attack people who do not believe they are the Chosen People. They do not burn down their homes and villages. Muslims and Christians do that with those who reject their beliefs and the practice is still very common among Muslims.

Even during the Biblical period, Jews did not attack people because they had other Gods and ignored the God of Israel. Their concern was with those who tried to wipe out the Jewish people. And that is a concern even today.

When people say Jews must give up their belief that Genesis is meaningful and correct and attack Israel based on that, Jews feel they have no choice but to defend their religion from violent attacks. And that means using violence.

The evidence that Jews are the Chosen People is simple. The Jewish Bible is the basis for Christianity and Islam. It is written in Hebrew. The people who have kept Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible alive are the Jews. Without them the Arabs would have a sacred book they could not understand and Christians would have Bibles in many languages but not Hebrew. And only Jews have carefully studied the Hebrew Bible and kept detailed records of all that they have figured out about it. Without living Jews that tradition would die out. And threats to Israel threaten that tradition. That is why many Christians support Israel.

pere' that piece by gandhi was most edifying.

dave- please take this calmly and dont feel it is an attack- i am relating to you your own religious beliefs-

are you aware that the covenant as the chosen people was, shall we say- disrupted, possibly for the time being, when the diaspora came?

i was told this in temple dave- by old men who studied all day-

i had no reason to disbelieve them.
if i have been misinformed perhaps you could provide the sources that i could re-educate myself- but i had no reason to think they were uneducated or had any ulterior motive.

i have been under the impression for many years that at tis time, all stand equally before god and there are no more favorites or chosen, but the state of ones heart and piety determine ones staus in the judgement of god.

im really not trying to get under your skin- or diminish in any way the dignity or piety of jewish people.

i will not be satisfied if you just disagree- i thought it was a given in judaism today- none ofmy jewish friends held the belief that you do-

so if you could provide the references for that id appreciate it.

its not an accusation- or meant to be in any way derogatory- im not trying to take something away from jewish people, its just what ive been told by jewish people.

if you know differently ill certainly respect it.

"but the topic is CAN YOU CRITICIZE ISRAEL WITHOUT BEIGN ANTI-SEMITIC?

all your whole point is to reduce any criticism to anti-semitism

it doesnt distract most intelligent people dave"

There is a myth that people who are intelligent about some things must be intelligent about everything. I don't see much intelligent talk about this issue. Carter's views about this subject are not very bright and I am not impressed by Dershowitz's rebuttals. They both come from an "of course I am right because I am very intelligent point of view." They are both very intelligent but they can't both be right about these issues.

You and many others are like the Irish monk you quoted earlier. You view anti-semitism as a word thst has no meaning today when applied to what happens to Jews. Even criticizing what is in Genesis and Exodus as immoral must not be construed as anti-semitic. And if it so construed, it is part of an AIPAC plot to subvert decency and truth.

"And as far as my challenge about Gaza...you avoided the question again as you do so frequently on your post. If they move they can never come back and that is what your government is counting on."

That is semantics. Giving you an answer you do not like is not avoiding the question.

When people emigrate they do not expect to come back. That is especially so when the conditions they left are awful. And a Palestinian state would include Gaza and could set its own rules for who can come and go.

Victoria,

"why is the unity of the jewish people more important than the people who were swept aside to create that unity?"

You are criticizing words you don't seem to understand.

The spiritual unity of the Jewish people does not require geographical contiguity. That should be obvious.

When Mercaz refers to assimilation, they are not talking about living next to people who are not Jewish. And today they are not really talking about intermarriage. What they are referring to is intermarriage where trhe children are not raised as Jews.

"but how you can turn such an overt and disgraceful spearatist and segregationist statement into being a victim of anti-semitism is a miracle of slippery maneuvers indeed"

Here you measure others by a measure quite different from what you judge your own group by.

What you are disgusted by has always been a fundamental tenet of Judaism. So if people are disgusted by Judaism they are right to be so and hence can not be anti-semitic? That is an absurd redefinition of the term. And what about those who think Mohammed was a nice man who wrote the Qu'ran and was not the Messenger of God? Is that okay?

"Dave your rangling of semantics is old and tiresome...In the book Arab Folk Tales translated by Iner Bushnaq it refers to Palestine in many of the stories. When Samuel Clements (Mark Twain) toured Palestine he found it a backwater ...But he mentioned it."

You use the word semantics differently than I do which is a matter of semantics. The word Palestine has been around since the Romans and derives from the Kingdom of the Philistines. The territory so defined has changed since the Romans in many ways at many times. The people living there can be construed as a separate race but that is like viewing Texans as a different race than those from Arkansas.

Victoria,

I am not sure you will ever respond to what I am writing. The style you use is to relate to a figment of your imagination as if that is me. And that style is common among foes of Israel.

"you wrote-Our connection to the Land and State of Israel and its capital Jerusalem begins first and foremost with our People's 4000-year covenant with the Divine. This covenant has imposed upon us the responsibility not only to support and defend the State of Israel but also to create in Zion an exemplary Jewish society that is a national home — democratic and pluralistic — for all Jews, secure and at peace with its Arab neighbors, committed to protecting its environment and natural resources, respecting the rights of all of its citizens and supporting all streams of Jewish practice."

That is from a website.

"and then you changed it to-

The issue is not whether folks agree with that. The issue is how hateful others find it. That has always been part of Judaism and people have always hated Jews for it. And people have felt since their hate is just, they are realistic not anti-semitic."

I wrote that.

"no dave- you just added that to stick in another antisemitc accusation-
where did you say how hateful others find it?"

There you read my mind wrongly. But alas you are sure you know what is in my mind better than I do. And that is the way Christians and Muslims are with Jews.

It irks many Christians and Muslims that Jews view themselves as the chosen people. Yet that is what Genesis and Exodus say. So it won't change. Now who put Christians and Muslims in charge of the Jews? Who told Christians and Muslims both liberal and not that they have an important mission to teach the Jews what Genesis and Exodus say, chastise them, admonish them, and generally knock themselves out trying to get Jews to do what Christians and Muslims want them to do? And how could I convince many Jews that Christian and Muslim attitude is not anti-semitic?

Little did he anticipate the horrors in store for Jewish people in the 1940's but it is further proof that there were people living in Israel/Palistine.

Israel has a right to exixt in freedom and peace. All citizens of the world do. The questiomn is how and when; and I beleive that when Israel and it's arab citizens have a just and fair peace it will happen. As long as you deny the existance of each other than you are doomed. No should ever deny the suffering of the Jewish people in Europe or the Arab lands. However, to deny that Palistinians by any name are not suffering is perpetuating the same mentality. Ethnic cleansing is when you force someone out of their homes by psychological or physical force. The people of Gaza lived in rental and small villages and were forced out by numerous things ...the blame should be shared with a few greedy arabs and a force of zionism. But the reality is they were removed or fleed in fear.

Mahatma Gandhi on ! Palestine written in 1938

The Jews In Palestine

By Mahatma Gandhi

Published in the Harijan
26-11-1938.

Several letters have been received by me, asking me to declare my views
about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in
Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on
this very difficult question.

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South
Africa. Some of them became lifelong companions. Through these friends I
came to learn much of their age long persecution. They have been the
untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by
Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close.

Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of
the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships,
therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for
the Jews. But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice.

The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me.
The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews
have hankered after return to Palestine.

Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country
their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their
national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of
the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French.

If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being
forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled?
Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the
national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of
the Jews. But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel
in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have
gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For, he is propounding a new
religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any
inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter.

The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his
wholerace with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable
war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany to prevent the
wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do
not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is,
therefore, outside my horizon or province.

But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is
being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with
Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation, which claims to stand
for justice and democracy and one, which is the declared enemy of both? Or
is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?

Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when
it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism.It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact, in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless.

If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I
would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this I
should not wait for! the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but
would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my
example.... ...

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going
about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a
geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the
Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under
the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the
aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the
goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart.

The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart... They will
find the world opinion in their favor in their religious aspiration. There are
hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the
help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the
British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not
defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence
in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment
upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong,
nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of
overwhelming odds.

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing
the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every
country is their home, including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving
service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution
to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done
to enrich the world's literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine,
agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the
outcast of the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the
attention and respect of the world by being the chosen creation of God,
instead of sinking to the brute who is forsaken by God. They can add to
their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.

now dave, you have said that you are a jewish man, right?

so i find it confusing that your first reason for supporting israel is that the evangelicals do.

are you an evangelical?

do you follow their position on everything?

you just might be an evangelical then.

or you just follow it on israel?

that would be just jumping on the bandwagon then-

either way- its still not YOUR reason-
unless youre saying you agree with the evangelicals on this issue- which doesnt really make sense-

it was certainly a jewish issue before it was an evangelical position

so which is it?

heres how it works-

someone posits a query-

then you answer
then you support it with reasoning, logic and sources as to WHY you hold this position

you on the other hand, just argue about the definitions of words, i guess you think that it will distract from the original question being completely unanswered-

but it doesnt

it rather clarifies your inablity to frame a cohesive answer

so are you evangelical, or not?

you wrote-Our connection to the Land and State of Israel and its capital Jerusalem begins first and foremost with our People's 4000-year covenant with the Divine. This covenant has imposed upon us the responsibility not only to support and defend the State of Israel but also to create in Zion an exemplary Jewish society that is a national home — democratic and pluralistic — for all Jews, secure and at peace with its Arab neighbors, committed to protecting its environment and natural resources, respecting the rights of all of its citizens and supporting all streams of Jewish practice."

and then you changed it to-

The issue is not whether folks agree with that. The issue is how hateful others find it. That has always been part of Judaism and people have always hated Jews for it. And people have felt since their hate is just, they are realistic not anti-semitic."

no dave- you just added that to stick in another antisemitc accusation-
where did you say how hateful others find it?

i think this is the first time it has occurred to you how others would view this-

so youre saying segregation has always been a part of judaism?

the issue obviously isnt how others view it-

clearly it doesnt matter how anyone else feels

but how you can turn such an overt and disgraceful spearatist and segregationist statement into being a victim of anti-semitism is a miracle of slippery maneuvers indeed

the issue is dave-

look at the proof of the laws in israel

they support your stated intention

"MERCAZ USA sees Zionism as an invaluable tool for strengthening Jewish identity and combating assimilation. It calls for linking Jewish
communities throughout the Diaspora with Israel through tourism, Jewish education, Hebrew language study, "people-to-people" partnerships, short-and long-term Israel programs and Aliyah.

the centrality of Israel in the life and consciousness of thee Jewish People and the unity of the Jewish People wherever they may live."

why is the unity of the jewish people more important than the people who were swept aside to create that unity?

it is not at all as you claimed-

That has always been part of Judaism and people have always hated Jews for it. And people have felt since their hate is just, they are realistic not anti-semitic."

it is NOT ANTISEMITIC to be upset when people say their speparatism and segregation -

it is something innately unjust to think that others should understand it as some kind of entitlement as it is stated here-

in islam (and america) there is no such 'entitlement' based on race and religion

there are actually laws against it dave

but i know you wont address this issue
you wont address the laws of segregation of israel

instead youll try to avoid the subject altogether and go off topic

but the topic is CAN YOU CRITICIZE ISRAEL WITHOUT BEIGN ANTI-SEMITIC?

all your whole point is to reduce any criticism to anti-semitism

it doesnt distract most intelligent people dave

Dave your rangling of semantics is old and tiresome...In the book Arab Folk Tales translated by Iner Bushnaq it refers to Palestine in many of the stories. When Samuel Clements (Mark Twain) toured Palestine he found it a backwater ...But he mentioned it. Your own Zionist pioneers recognized that their dreams of changing the desert into an Eden was going to be a challenge because of the number of people living there; Asher Ginberg(1891) wrote "we abroad used to think that Eretz Israel was almost totally desolate....but the truth is ...that throughout the country it is hard to find fields that are not sowed". The Jews who were snowed by the concept that it was land without people where shocked when the began to move there and find people (Ron David, 1993,1996)

So Dave it is like saying that just because they were a little country ( and country wasn't cool) they had not being living there. They were poor farmers and villagers who had lived there for 2,000 years and were the Canaanites, gentiles and Jews of the bible. Some of them converted and some stayed.

Just because colonial powers came in and changed the names of the countries (just like the UN did for Israel: changing Palestine to Israel) doesn't make it a land of non people.

And as far as my challenge about Gaza...you avoided the question again as you do so frequently on your post. If they move they can never come back and that is what your government is counting on.

Dave your rangling of semantics is old and tiresome...In the book Arab Folk Tales translated by Iner Bushnaq it refers to Palestine in many of the stories. When Samuel Clements (Mark Twain) toured Palestine he found it a backwater ...But he mentioned it. Your own Zionist pioneers recognized that their dreams of changing the desert into an Eden was going to be a challenge because of the number of people living there; Asher Ginberg(1891) wrote "we abroad used to think that Eretz Israel was almost totally desolate....but the truth is ...that throughout the country it is hard to find fields that are not sowed". The Jews who were snowed by the concept that it was land without people where shocked when the began to move there and find people (Ron David, 1993,1996)

So Dave it is like saying that just because they were a little country ( and country wasn't cool) they had not being living there. They were poor farmers and villagers who had lived there for 2,000 years and were the Canaanites, gentiles and Jews of the bible. Some of them converted and some stayed.

Just because colonial powers came in and changed the names of the countries (just like the UN did for Israel: changing Palestine to Israel) doesn't make it a land of non people.

And as far as my challenge about Gaza...you avoided the question again as you do so frequently on your post. If they move they can never come back and that is what your government is counting on.

Pere and Victoria:

When did the Palestinians become a people apart from other Arabs? Who did that? Was it Turkey, Britain, the UN, or Israel? How do you distinguish a Palestinian from a Jordanian or Lebanese? The ancestors of the people you refer to as Palestinians were Egyptians and Jordanians.

Can you point me to Palestinian literature and art from before 1948? Most of what is available is about the oppression of Palestinians by Israel. Did Israel create the Palestinian people?

Victoria:

"why would your opinion be based on the opinions of evangelical christians?"

It is not as I have explained.

"youre so focused and thinskinned that you are missing the point"

Why is focused bad and unfocused good?

Thinskinned is a common word anti-semites have applied to Jews who do not like the way they are treated by them.

"also you are obviously skimming or skipping what i post"

Well, you keep saying I have not written what I have written. And you are posting the same things over and over again.

""MERCAZ USA sees Zionism as an invaluable tool for strengthening Jewish identity and combating assimilation."

jews cant assimilate with others?

a muslim would never make such an elistist and exclusionary statement and expect anyone to validate it"

The issue is not whether folks agree with that. The issue is how hateful others find it. That has always been part of Judaism and people have always hated Jews for it. And people have felt since their hate is just, they are realistic not anti-semitic.

Muslims kill people who convert. They do not want their children to become Christians as the result of marriage.

Palestinians are concerned about maintaining their distinct identity as a people separate from all others. That is why they want a homeland with a right of return to it. It just happens that their homeland has other people living in it.

No one has ever successfully undone what has happened in history. Here folks want to recreate the Kingdom of the Philistines which disappeared more than three millenia ago but this time with Arab Philistines.

I don't follow the reasoning that leads to numerous posts with the same things in them.

Pere:

"When you don't criticize oppression you become part of it."

That applies to people who refuse to admit there is anti-semitism.

"You forfeit your values and ideals to hold on to a piece of real estate at the cost of your children dn their children."

We have people who want to get land they left or lost many years ago back. No one else is trying to do that. And they are destroying their lives and the lives of their children to do that.

Victoria:

"besides what i perceive as an emotional attachment indoctrinated into children before they can make a logical distinction"

What has led you to be so sure you can read many people's minds?

"dave- you really avent read anything ive posted have you?"

That is more mind reading.

"you ARE aware that ive made many posts that were written by other people?"

I have referred to those people as your team. You appear to have not understaood that. But that may be a rhetorical choice you are making.

"i am not the one who said israel is racist
the united nations did"

That is a Fallacy of Composition. On one day, the majority of representatives in the UN General Assembly approved a resolution which said that. That resolution has been repealed.

The problem with that is that it is a definition of racism that was created for the sole purpose of attacking and demeaning Israel. Such definitions make it impossible to talk peacefully about thse issues because you can not refute a definition.

"all mankind is equal in my religion dave"

And in others. But distinctions are made.

this is what the Prophet(pbuh) clearly stated in his last speech-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all mankind is equal in my religion dave

and the scariest thing of all is- you say this as if you expect it to be an acceptable thing for everyone-

like everyone will look at that and say- 'o yes, the jewish people are gods favorites and chosen people so of course they have the RIGHT to segregate even though we fight segregation and FIGHT FOR ASSIMILATION of everyone else.

wow- you really think that is valid dont you?
you really thought that was a conversation stopper- as if it should be obvious to everyone that jews should be above assimilation.

wow

FACTS ABOUT ISRAELI POLICY
למאמר בעברית

THESE ARE PRESENT LAWS IN ISRAEL

* 95% of Israel's lands (which is mostly owned by Palestinian refugees) is open for development to Jews only?

* Israeli-Palestinian citizens live almost in segregated communities (or ghettos) because development is strictly limited outside their villages? Ironically, the word "ghetto" was invented to describe the living conditions of Eastern European Jews in Tsarist Russia!

* For just being "Jewish" you gain an automatic citizenship in Israel? Plus tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies too.

* Palestinian Muslims or Christians refugees, who were born in the country and later expelled, cannot gain Israeli citizenship? Of course, unless they convert to Judaism first!

* Pretending to be Jewish in Israel is punishable by law with up to one year's imprisonment? On the other hand, if you pretend to be a Muslim or Christian the law does you no harm!

* Close to 4 million Palestinian Muslims and Christians are being subjected to Israeli laws that are different than the laws governing the 4.5 million Israeli Jews? Is this a "democratically" elected apartheid, or not, that is the question?

* In the occupied West Bank there are "Jewish Roads" and "Non-Jewish Roads"?

* Israel issues national identify cards where the religion of the card holder is clearly shown in bold type?

* Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza drive vehicles with license plates that have different coloring than the cars driven by Israeli settlers?

* Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza hold ID cards that are of different colors than the cards held by Israeli settlers?

* The only form of Judaism recognized by the "Jewish state" is Orthodox Judaism, so most US Jews could not get married in Israel. Furthermore, the only conversion to Judaism recognized is Orthodox, so most US converts aren't Jewish enough.

* Just prior to the 1948 war, Jews owned under 7% of Palestine's land, and to increase their share after the war, they passed the "Absentees' Law" which dispossessed the Palestinian majority land owners who later became "absent". What is even more tragic was the passage of an oxymoron law, called "Present Absentees' Law," which dispossessed the Palestinian-Israeli citizens who became internal refugees in Israel. It is worth noting that the internal Jewish refugees were not dispossessed as a result of this racist law.

* Israeli democracy is a facade for "Jewish Democracy?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*only jews can buy (95%) of land in israel
*any jew can be a citizen and get money if they
move there
* different laws, roads, id,(with the religion printed in bold) license plates different colors for jews and everyone else

can you imagine if in america white people had different color id cards and only christians could buy land?

and there were SEPARATE ROADS? for white people and everyone else?

and the scariest thing of all is- you say this as if you expect it to be an acceptable thing for everyone-

like everyone will look at that and say- 'o yes, the jewish people are gods favorites and chosen people so of course they have the RIGHT to segregate even though we fight segregation and FIGHT FOR ASSIMILATION of everyone else.

wow- you really think that is valid dont you?
you really thought that was a conversation stopper- as if it should be obvious to everyone that jews should be above assimilation.

wow

FACTS ABOUT ISRAELI POLICY
למאמר בעברית

THESE ARE PRESENT LAWS IN ISRAEL

* 95% of Israel's lands (which is mostly owned by Palestinian refugees) is open for development to Jews only?

* Israeli-Palestinian citizens live almost in segregated communities (or ghettos) because development is strictly limited outside their villages? Ironically, the word "ghetto" was invented to describe the living conditions of Eastern European Jews in Tsarist Russia!

* For just being "Jewish" you gain an automatic citizenship in Israel? Plus tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies too.

* Palestinian Muslims or Christians refugees, who were born in the country and later expelled, cannot gain Israeli citizenship? Of course, unless they convert to Judaism first!

* Pretending to be Jewish in Israel is punishable by law with up to one year's imprisonment? On the other hand, if you pretend to be a Muslim or Christian the law does you no harm!

* Close to 4 million Palestinian Muslims and Christians are being subjected to Israeli laws that are different than the laws governing the 4.5 million Israeli Jews? Is this a "democratically" elected apartheid, or not, that is the question?

* In the occupied West Bank there are "Jewish Roads" and "Non-Jewish Roads"?

* Israel issues national identify cards where the religion of the card holder is clearly shown in bold type?

* Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza drive vehicles with license plates that have different coloring than the cars driven by Israeli settlers?

* Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza hold ID cards that are of different colors than the cards held by Israeli settlers?

* The only form of Judaism recognized by the "Jewish state" is Orthodox Judaism, so most US Jews could not get married in Israel. Furthermore, the only conversion to Judaism recognized is Orthodox, so most US converts aren't Jewish enough.

* Just prior to the 1948 war, Jews owned under 7% of Palestine's land, and to increase their share after the war, they passed the "Absentees' Law" which dispossessed the Palestinian majority land owners who later became "absent". What is even more tragic was the passage of an oxymoron law, called "Present Absentees' Law," which dispossessed the Palestinian-Israeli citizens who became internal refugees in Israel. It is worth noting that the internal Jewish refugees were not dispossessed as a result of this racist law.

* Israeli democracy is a facade for "Jewish Democracy?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*only jews can buy (95%) of land in israel
*any jew can be a citizen and get money if they
move there
* different laws, roads, id,(with the religion printed in bold) license plates different colors for jews and everyone else

can you imagine if in america white people had different color id cards and only christians could buy land?

this is an specially troubling form of reasoning-

"MERCAZ USA sees Zionism as an invaluable tool for strengthening Jewish identity and combating assimilation."

jews cant assimilate with others?

a muslim would never make such an elistist and exclusionary statement and expect anyone to validate it

its invalid

combat assimilation?

are the rest of us too beneath jewish people for them to mix with us?

you dont see the superiority complex that engenders such a statement?

can you imagine if i used that as an excuse to not sell a house to an african american? because im white?

if i said - im combatting assimilation and will only sell to whites-

ot wouldnt sell a house to a jew because im muslim?

and said i want to keep my neighborhood pure and dont want my kids marrying theirs? (which of course in islam is allowed as it is truly an egalitarian non racist religion)

can you imagine the lawsuits? or the general outrage?

combat assimilation- equals exactly segregation

so segregation is different if jewish people want it?

jewish people have the right to segregate even if it means they steal someone elses land to do it?

wow

you have just described the supposed democracy of israel

wow

dave- you really avent read anything ive posted have you?

you ARE aware that ive made many posts that were written by other people?

i am not the one who said israel is racist
the united nations did

i refer back to the original question - on the first reason you posted-

why would your opinion be based on the opinions of evangelical christians?

i dont understand your connection

youre so focused and thinskinned that you are missing the point

also you are obviously skimming or skipping what i post

even though you posted some reasons- you will not elaborate on them-

there are kurds who are dispossessed so why should a whole country be displaced so that jewish people can have a feeling of community?

are israelis worth more than the people they kicked out?

why arent they nicer to palestinians?

they werent bothering anyone anywhere-

its not their responsibility god decide to disperse the jewish people-

still no why as to your statement that youre following the evangelists?

youre not an evangelist

why should that be a reason for you or anyone? (except evangelists)

this is deeply illogical and counterintuitive

Here is something for folks to talk about:

"MERCAZ USA sees Zionism as an invaluable tool for strengthening Jewish identity and combating assimilation. It calls for linking Jewish
communities throughout the Diaspora with Israel through tourism, Jewish education, Hebrew language study, "people-to-people" partnerships, short-and long-term Israel programs and Aliyah.

Conservative/Masorti Judaism was the first of the modern religious movements to embrace Zionism and has steadfastly remained at the forefront of the effort to promote its values: the centrality of Israel in the life and consciousness of thee Jewish People and the unity of the Jewish People wherever they may live.

Our connection to the Land and State of Israel and its capital Jerusalem begins first and foremost with our People's 4000-year covenant with the Divine. This covenant has imposed upon us the responsibility not only to support and defend the State of Israel but also to create in Zion an exemplary Jewish society that is a national home — democratic and pluralistic — for all Jews, secure and at peace with its Arab neighbors, committed to protecting its environment and natural resources, respecting the rights of all of its citizens and supporting all streams of Jewish practice."

That is the Jewish counterpart to the Presbyterian Church's position. How should folks who find it detestable be described?

"and while you say youve printed reasons on the past you have not- just saying youve done it doesnt cover the fact that you havent-"

This is my problem with the summaries those who don't like Israel present. What I have written is here. But you won't see it. So how dependable can your research be on more complex matters where all of the evidence is not readily available to you?

Look at the way you carry on about why Republicans support Israel. Why not look at the other things I said?

"i just dont think they are GOOD or ethical reasons at all"

That criteria won't be met by any reasons to support Israel. Folks are too sure they are right and have all the answers. But many other folks are just as sure they are right and there are more of them. So saying the same things over and over can not work.

"how can i develop symapthies for israel if no one has any defense from a human and moral and ethical standpoint?"

There are many defenses. Folks who don't like Israel are sure they are all wrong.

Think about what you and they are really saying. It is no secret that most Jews support Israel. Folks are sure they have no human, moral, or ethical reasons for doing so. That is a negative way of viewing Jews that was old when the phrase anti-semitic was invented. And yet folks who think that way are outraged if anyone views that way of thinking as anti-semitic. That is because they define anti-semitism as something that used to happen to Jews long ago but does not happen now.

"if police shoot someone in queens it has no bearing on the policies of israel- when they put up a question on police brutality or racism in america-(actually they just did) we can discuss it there"

One of the charges you cite is that Israel is racist and practices Apatheid. So what you view as racism and apartheid is relevant to my point that you and others have redefined those terms to make them fit Israel. You also feel that everyone should be far more concerned about what Israel does than about what other countries do. So how you view things in your own neighborhood is relevant.

I still do not understand why so many people who do not like Republicans blame Jews for what they do.

i certainly HAVE NOT said i cant see the reasons we support israel- ive stated many times im well aware of them- i just dont think they are GOOD or ethical reasons at all (by we i mean america)

and while you say youve printed reasons on the past you have not- just saying youve done it doesnt cover the fact that you havent-

ive searched your posts looking for subtle reasons i may have missed-and to date youve only posted quite recently.

i have asked for your personal reasons over and over and over again-

and you always change the subject-

ive been asking for your personal WHY-

and you still havent answered the why-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
your reason is that christian evangelicals believe that the jews should be back in israel-

so- why should that be YOUR reason?

youre not evangelical

why would your reasons be dependent on what evangelicals think?

because everyone ays so isnt a personal reason-

why DOES your opinion rest on what evangelicals do?

you may have a reason dave- you may think that they have a strong moral fibre and wouldnt support something immoral- i dont knwo your reasons-

that is why i ask why?
to gain another perspective

how can i develop symapthies for israel if no one has any defense from a human and moral and ethical standpoint?

that is all ive been asking you for a long time
and it really is incongruous to me that someone has a strong support for something but cannot define it-

that is the only question ive really asked you-

for instance- if every muslim in the world said that murder is okay- i still would go against the crowd and say it is not.

you get me?

the majority isnt a substitute for considerate examination of ones own conscience-

i am very willing to see things form the ethical standpoint of the israeli supporter-

i just cant find one- if you have one, tell me about it-

and deflecting criticism by pointing out the rotten actions of others- still doesnt change the facts-

if police shoot someone in queens it has no bearing on the policies of israel- when they put up a question on police brutality or racism in america-(actually they just did) we can discuss it there

so im wondering how the opinions of evangelists drives your own personal reasoning process to support israel as an individual.

just the why
for understanding

i certainly HAVE NOT said i cant see the reasons we support israel- ive stated many times im well aware of them- i just dont think they are GOOD or ethical reasons at all (by we i mean america)

and while you say youve printed reasons on the past you have not- just saying youve done it doesnt cover the fact that you havent-

ive searched your posts looking for subtle reasons i may have missed-and to date youve only posted quite recently.

i have asked for your personal reasons over and over and over again-

and you always change the subject-

ive been asking for your personal WHY-

and you still havent answered the why-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
your reason is that christian evangelicals believe that the jews should be back in israel-

so- why should that be YOUR reason?

youre not evangelical

why would your reasons be dependent on what evangelicals think?

because everyone ays so isnt a personal reason-

why DOES your opinion rest on what evangelicals do?

you may have a reason dave- you may think that they have a strong moral fibre and wouldnt support something immoral- i dont knwo your reasons-

that is why i ask why?
to gain another perspective

how can i develop symapthies for israel if no one has any defense from a human and moral and ethical standpoint?

that is all ive been asking you for a long time
and it really is incongruous to me that someone has a strong support for something but cannot define it-

that is the only question ive really asked you-

for instance- if every muslim in the world said that murder is okay- i still would go against the crowd and say it is not.

you get me?

the majority isnt a substitute for considerate examination of ones own conscience-

i am very willing to see things form the ethical standpoint of the israeli supporter-

i just cant find one- if you have one, tell me about it-

Victoria,

Sometimes you say you can't see any reasons we support Israel. And sometimes you ask for my reasons. The reasons I have given that you refer to have been posted by me many times before.

The only reason you address is the most powerful one. Most traditional Christians strongly support Israel. Those Christians who do not are an outraged minority. But they are far more outraged about gay rights than they are about Israel. Jews have nothing to do with that unless you choose to blame Jews for Christianity.

Curiously Americans who are obsessed about Israel's racism are not as concerned about the racism they see all around them in the US. You are in Queens. What do you think about the Sean Bell matter and the way the city lets the police deal with it?

ok, well you say youre an analytial guy dave - so lets start from your reasons that you finally posted-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

well, as for number 1 reason-

because the evangelicals want to force gods hand and push the apocalypse up so that jesus(ata) can come again-

isnt this a little bit exclusivist?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

your reason is that christian evangelicals believe that the jews should be back in israel-

so- why should that be YOUR reason?

youre not evangelical

why would your reasons be dependent on what evangelicals think?

while you appear to be taking the high rod now dave, are you suggesting that we change the conversation from criticism of israel to proposing a plan for peace?

because we never really did figure out the part about the reasons for israel yet- as a matter of fact- since feb 21 ive been trying to get you to post any reasons at all and that just happened yesterday-

did you ant to finish that conversation?

perhaps you could elaborate on the 'why" of your reasons.
(actually that has been my question all along)

dave- no one here is shouting.

we are expressing opinions and backing those opinions up with logical sources.

i have truly been trying to find what it is about israel (besides what i perceive as an emotional attachment indoctrinated into children before they can make a logical distinction) that is so deserving of the overhwelming attention and aid and sympathy america has given her.

i have been asking this question for years-

i cant begin to have more compassion for zionists until one of them shows me some reason to-

if you have compelling reasons dave- i am the first to be happy to hear them- but you dont seem to have a strong reason or reasoning process-
so i fill in my own until you supply it.

im not sure what to think about the evangelicals you mentioned-

i stated what their thinking is- its no secret at all- but i do see the incredible injustices perpetuated for half a century (actually it happened long before) on the palestinians, and to me it is a blight on the rest of humanity that they sit complicitly silent and allow this to happen, let alone live in a country where the taxes i pay go to support a government that abuses people so.

and my sympathies naturally lie with the oppressed.
and there are many many many jews who agree with this.

if i were jewish would that make my voice more valid?

i dont really believe so- but self criticism or even examination is lacking in these discourses-

the arab summit just came up with the plan again- to return to pre-1967 borders-

what is so hard about that?

i personally have moved so many times in my life that they almost equal my years.

the last settlers that had to evacuate got a nice 250,000 dollar compensation- no one is suggesting people give up generations on a piece of land- this is all recent history-

in my life i have many many times not advanced myself because it meant i i would do it at someone elses loss-
i dont expect anyone to do anything i would not do myself.

so dave- i guess for some reason youre with the evangelists- this doesnt make sense to me but its your reason-

i keep suggesting topics to have them rejected-

what is wrong with the pre-1967 borders?

"Can you justify why one group of people should be forced to live in the most densely populated piece of real estate on earth?"

Gaza is not a prison. People are not forced to live there.

There are plenty of victims on each side.

Peace is not about the side you disagree with surrendering to those you approve of. People must stop trying to bull their way through. That is where reason comes in. Creating special definitions of common words and insisting they are the only definitions is no road to peace.

So we have to get beyond people shouting back and forth about matters of definition. That means more careful discussion and fewer broad generalizations. I am trying to show the way to that here with no success.

Can you justify why one group of people should be forced to live in the most densely populated piece of real estate on earth? where water is controlled by another group of people? That travel and families are separated by a "wall" and that collective punishment is imposed on families by an army with Tanks and Helicopter Gun Ships. Is this what our G-d is going to justify? Why do people become terrorists? What drives children to give up their innocence and blow themselves up? Killing more innocents. This thread was about criticism of Israel and some of you chose to perpetuate the problem and ignore the solution .

Peace and freedom for every human being is the only solution. When you don't criticize oppression you become part of it. You forfeit your values and ideals to hold on to a piece of real estate at the cost of your children dn their children. This conflict is about two groups of people that have lost sight of their values and priorities. They have lost the love of mankind and have become entrenched in the politics of destruction. Enough, enough....you can try to justify and revise history for any purpose. But, in the end nothing rationalizes violence, greed and control.

For peace sake we all have to come together and solve the problems not keep things moving in the same direction.

Dave and Victoria both of you are of strong conviction. Both of you could be part of the solution. I would like to see if either one of you could have empathy for the victims. I also would say Dave could you live for 50 years in Gaza?

Can you justify why one group of people should be forced to live in the most densely populated piece of real estate on earth? where water is controlled by another group of people? That travel and families are separated by a "wall" and that collective punishment is imposed on families by an army with Tanks and Helicopter Gun Ships. Is this what our G-d is going to justify? Why do people become terrorists? What drives children to give up their innocence and blow themselves up? Killing more innocents. This thread was about criticism of Israel and some of you chose to perpetuate the problem and ignore the solution .

Peace and freedom for every human being is the only solution. When you don't criticize oppression you become part of it. You forfeit your values and ideals to hold on to a piece of real estate at the cost of your children dn their children. This conflict is about two groups of people that have lost sight of their values and priorities. They have lost the love of mankind and have become entrenched in the politics of destruction. Enough, enough....you can try to justify and revise history for any purpose. But, in the end nothing rationalizes violence, greed and control.

For peace sake we all have to come together and solve the problems not keep things moving in the same direction.

Dave and Victoria both of you are of strong conviction. Both of you could be part of the solution. I would like to see if either one of you could have empathy for the victims. I also would say Dave could you live for 50 years in Gaza?

Victoria,

Are you finally willing to concede that I have been giving reasons why we support Israel?

"also i notice your conspicuous silence and non response to all the republican candidates and their relationship to AIPAC and israel"

What is that relationship? Most Jews vote for Democrats. AIPAC is rightly viewed as a collection of people who are close to Israel. And many Christians care deeply about the security of Israel. There are at least ten times as many Christians who support Israel as there are Jews in total. And it is not because they all like and respect Jews.

I guess you also take this seriously:

"28-Year Career CIA Official Says 9/11 An Inside Job"

That is the man you have just quoted with approval as an expert.

DAVE MARSHAK'S REASONS WHY THE US SHOULD SUPPORT ISRAEL

Christians especially evangelical Protestants think Jews should be back in Israel.

We look at Israel with its robust democracy and enterprising spirit and see people who are doing the kinds of things we like people to do. So we help them out.

The money spent for Israel balances the money others spend against Israel. It is based on the fact that a war has been going on against Israel for almost 60 years; sometimes it is very hot and sometimes it is cold but it has never stopped.

Israel is very creative in its business zone and we like nations that are good at business, enterprise, creating new technologies, running things well, and solving issues among themselves peacefully using the tools of Democracy.

We think a peaceful Middle East, where the nations are more like what I said about Israel in the prior paragraph, is good for us and good for humanity. And we think our views about how to achieve that make sense.

Posted April 4, 2007 11:01 AM STARHAWKS BLOG

okay- lets start with reason number 1-

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" Christians especially evangelical Protestants think Jews should be back in Israel."
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ok- evangelists and right wingers want to push the apocalypse up and force gods hand into the return of jesus-

thats a good reason!

just pulls at your heartstrings doesnt it-

well, it certainly asnswers the only important question, "Is it good for israel?"

also notice how hes speaking about iran.
Iran? dave didnt you say israeli opinion wont push american into a war with iran?
yes you did-
but here he is assuring AIPAC that if president he will certainly coincide in their interests to control iran- but theyre not related-no no-

the same man who told an audience nobody is suffering more than the palestinians now seems to have turned his back on them and any other enemies of israel-
if theyre enemies of israel- theyre enemies of the united states-

although no one has actually ever said WHY this is so-

actually its been my question to you dave which youve sidestepped with alacrity-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DOES THE ISRAELI TAIL WAG AMERICAN DOG?

By Kathleen and Bill Christison

A quarter century ago, the executive director of AIPAC —the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—established an analytical unit inside the organization to write in-depth advocacy papers for policymakers. The year was 1981, the president was Ronald Reagan, and AIPAC had just lost a hard-fought battle in Congress over the sale of AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia. The AIPAC leader was an energetic former congressional aide named Thomas Dine, who used the setback to build AIPAC into a formidable political force. Over the next few years, Dine quadrupled AIPAC’s grassroots membership as well as its budget and aggressively expanded contacts with Congress and policymakers. He set out to supply politicians with analyses geared toward advancing Israeli interests, in the stated belief that anyone who wrote papers read by policymakers would effectively “own” the policymakers.

This was a seminal moment in the decades-long growth of the lobby’s influence on US Middle East policy, often to the detriment of US national interests. Many have characterized the relationship between what the United States does in the Middle East and what the lobby wants it to do as a case of the Israeli tail wagging the US dog. Israel and its US supporters, although constituting the junior partner in the relationship, are seen as virtually dictating policy to whatever administration and Congress are in power. There are myriad examples of this dynamic, most notably Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which dragged the US into a disastrous intervention, and Israel’s invasion of the West Bank in 2002, during which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon openly and repeatedly defied President George Bush’s demand for a withdrawal. Others maintain that the tail-wagging is the other way around: that the United States, as the superpower, patron of Israel, and its major aid donor, is unmistakably the senior partner and the dog that wags the tail. The question, therefore, is which is the accurate assessment, or is the cynical view of Israeli commentator Michel Warschawski correct, that “there is neither a dog nor a tail, but one global war of re-colonization, and one aggressive monster with two ugly heads”?

Silence Broken

Despite the growing power of the Israel lobby, and the growing convergence of US and Israeli efforts toward global and regional Middle East domination, public debate over the size and substance of the lobby’s role in US policymaking was almost non-existent until two political scientists, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University, issued an 81-page report in March 2006 analyzing lobby strength. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, and Walt, Belfer Professor of International Affairs, are leading proponents of the realist school of foreign policy, which argues that states act to further military and economic power rather than pursue idealism and ethics. Their report sparked widespread interest when it was published in abbreviated form in the London Review of Books. Defining the lobby broadly as “the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to shape US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction,” Mearsheimer and Walt conclude that the thrust of US policy in the Middle East is overwhelmingly the result of the lobby’s activities. They observe that, while other lobbies and interest groups have also demonstrated an ability to skew policy, “no lobby has managed to divert US foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially identical.”

The report aroused instantaneous and vocal opposition from the very individuals whom the authors identify as members of the lobby. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a vociferous advocate of Israel, called the authors “liars” engaging in “crass bigotry” and likened their arguments to neo-Nazi propaganda, filled with “thinly veiled charges of Jewish control of American thought” reminiscent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Abraham Foxman and his Anti-Defamation League (ADL) charged that the report’s main thesis “is the embodiment of classic, anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.”

Most criticism from Israel’s strongest advocates fails, however, to address the principal points of the Mearsheimer-Walt study: that influential elements in the United States—non-Jews as well as Jews—who have as a primary objective the advancement of Israeli interests have gained undue influence over US Middle East policy and use this influence to tilt policy toward Israel in ways that are contrary to US national interests. Instead, critics argue off the point, raising straw men that distract from the report’s main thesis.

The accusation that Mearsheimer and Walt are “anti-Semitic” is the charge most commonly heard from supporters of Israel across the political spectrum. Not coincidentally, it is also a line of attack long used by the lobby to silence and indeed attack anyone who dares question Israeli policies or the United States’ close ties to Israel. The question of anti-Semitism was addressed during a major debate in New York in September that pitted Mearsheimer and two allies against a former Israeli official and two policymakers from the Clinton administration, Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk. These three opponents of Mearsheimer, although clearly supporters of Israel, are generally regarded as centrists, neither particularly hard-core like Dershowitz nor rightwing, but all three echoed Dershowitz in charging that the report “lowers itself to the level of anti-Semitism” or “has connotations of anti-Semitism,” simply because it discusses the role of some Jews in positions of power and influence.

This debate around anti-Semitism is a diversion from the main issue and is undoubtedly intended as such. The New York panel spent fully one-third of its allotted time examining whether Mearsheimer and Walt are anti-Semitic before getting to any substantive analysis of the report’s conclusions and evidence. Criticism of former President Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid follows the same pattern. Critics charge poor scholarship or hint at anti-Semitism because Carter uses the term “apartheid” to describe Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. Many, including the Democratic Party leadership, have criticized the book, but few have provided evidence to support their charges or seriously examined the evidence behind Carter’s thesis.

A member of the New York panel who spoke in support of the Mearsheimer-Walt report, New York University professor Tony Judt, has written about the crippling effect that Americans’ induced fear of being labeled anti-Semitic has had on public discourse about anything relating to Israel and ultimately on policy. During the panel discussion, he highlighted the phenomenon by observing that, although there are “hundreds of distorting lobbies” in the US, the Israel lobby is the only one that not only acts energetically in pursuit of its cause, “but acts constantly and very effectively to silence criticism of its cause.” In a similar vein, Mearsheimer observed in an interview with Mother Jones that the main reason the strong affinity between the US and Israel continues is the absence of open and candid discussion about the relationship. There would be far less sympathy for Israel, he said, if Americans knew what Israelis are doing in the occupied territories. “In essence, America’s present relationship with Israel could not withstand public scrutiny.”

Jimmy Carter’s book makes a major effort to provide more scrutiny, but its success is so far uncertain. Scott Ritter, who worked closely with Israel as a military intelligence officer and as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, reiterates both Judt’s and Mearsheimer’s observations in his new book Target Iran. While many nations maintain active lobbies in the US, he writes, none has “the scope and clout” of the Israel lobby and none operates in its “brazen manner.” Ritter foresees a potentially catastrophic US-Israeli confrontation with Iran and believes the only way to avoid this will be by bringing the nature of the US-Israeli relationship into the national discourse, fundamentally re-examining why the US operates in “continued national impotence as another nation, Israel, dictates national security policy for all America.”

In a 2003 critique of Israel and the U.S.-Israeli relationship in the New York Review of Books, Judt touched on what Mearsheimer and Walt later laid out as their principal thesis. Judt wrote that Israel continued “to mock its American patron” by building illegal settlements even as the US was pushing the “Roadmap” peace plan calling for a freeze on settlement construction. Israel had reduced the powerful president of the United States, he said, to a “ventriloquist’s dummy, pitifully reciting the Israeli cabinet line.” Its behavior “has been a disaster for American foreign policy.” The United States’ unconditional support for Israel “is the main reason why most of the rest of the world no longer credits our good faith.”

James Abourezk knows the lobby well. A US senator from South Dakota from 1972-1978, Abourezk says, from his experience in Congress, that “the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear”—fear that “anyone who does not do what Israel wants done” will be defeated by the lobby. Abourezk reinforces the point about the lobby’s efforts to silence. “Even one voice is attacked,” he writes, “on grounds that if Congress is completely silent on the issue, the press will have no one to quote, which effectively silences the press as well. Any journalists or editors who step out of line are quickly brought under control by well organized economic pressure against the newspaper caught sinning.” Jimmy Carter has described a similar phenomenon in recent commentaries, noting that AIPAC’s “extraordinary lobbying efforts” have silenced all debate in policymaking councils, in Congress, and in the media about Israeli policies.

Abourezk describes pressure tactics that were already in full swing before AIPAC set out to “own” policymakers, and Carter has made it clear that the lobby’s stranglehold on discourse and on decisionmaking has tightened. The pro-Israeli tilt that has, to one degree or another, been characteristic of most administrations and most Congresses since Israel’s creation was clearly not Dine’s invention or a phenomenon that emerged only in the 1980s. But Dine institutionalized the process, strengthening it significantly.

In 1984, in addition to the internal analytical unit, AIPAC spun off another body, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), that remains a pre-eminent think tank—one that has placed its analysts in policymaking jobs in several administrations. Dennis Ross, who was the senior Middle East policymaker in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, came from WINEP and returned there after leaving government service. Martin Indyk, an original member of AIPAC’s analytical unit and WINEP’s first director, entered a senior policymaking position in the Clinton administration from there. Mearsheimer and Walt correctly describe both men as situated “at the core of the lobby.”

This assertion addresses a critical aspect of the lobby question by emphasizing the reality that the lobby has in recent decades actually become a part of various administrations. The lobby is also not confined to the formal Jewish-American organizations such as AIPAC and the ADL and think tanks like WINEP and JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, but also includes numerous individuals who work on Israel’s behalf and encompasses the very large fundamentalist Christian right. The Christian right strongly supports Israel’s continued control over the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem as the essential prerequisite to the so-called Millennium, when they believe Jesus Christ will reappear. During the last several years in particular, the Christian right has used its vast numbers to lobby both the administration and Congress in support of Israel’s policies and in opposition to any proposal that would require Israeli concessions.

The kind of blunt pressure on decisionmakers that Abourezk describes is only one way in which the organized lobby operates. The bond between Israel and the US has always had its grounding as much in soft emotions as in the hard realities of geopolitical strategy. Over the years since Israel’s creation, there has been a pervasive atmosphere in which Israel is simply assumed to be so close to the US, its interests so closely intertwined with American interests, that it is accepted almost as a part of the US.

The lobby reinforces this sentiment, channeling it into institutional ways of involving ordinary Americans in supporting Israel. Jeffrey Blankfort, a northern California radio host and long-time commentator on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and other Middle East issues, points out, for instance, that 1,700 unions in the US own more than $5 billion of Israel bonds. This effectively obliges the unions to support Israel, Blankfort believes, making the American labor movement a part of the lobby. It is one reason that the organized left in the United States has opposed making the Palestine issue part of the anti-war movement. Many states and universities also invest in Israel bonds, as well as in Israeli companies, giving these local governments and institutions an interest in supporting Israel’s policies in order to keep the Israeli economy going.

The pervasiveness of the lobby’s influence makes Tony Judt’s reference to the US president as a “ventriloquist’s dummy” particularly apt. As Walt pointed out in a Mother Jones interview, no matter what Israel does, the United States continues to support it. “They continue to build settlements even though every president since Lyndon Johnson has thought that was a bad idea. They spy on us routinely. They’ve given or sold American military technology to other countries. Also…they have conducted a wide variety of human rights violations, and yet none of those activities ever slows down American support.” For the last several decades, AIPAC has frequently involved itself directly in the legislative process, writing legislation relating to the Middle East and pushing a series of anti-Arab, pro-Israeli resolutions that state the stance of the Senate and the House on various issues, such as Israel’s construction of the separation wall and Israel’s summer 2006 attack on Lebanon. AIPAC often boasts that it vets and exerts influence over presidential candidates. During the 2004 presidential campaign when Howard Dean issued a mild and seemingly non-controversial call for an “even-handed” US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, he was roundly condemned by the lobby and by fellow Democrats, and he quickly dropped the call. Long-serving congressmen who deviate are targeted for electoral defeat. In the 1980s, Representative Paul Findley and Senator Charles Percy, who had each served multiple terms in Illinois, were defeated through the efforts of AIPAC after both spoke out in favor of negotiating with the PLO. More recently, Georgia’s Cynthia McKinney has twice been the target of AIPAC’s electoral interference.

The list goes on. Israel and its lobby have been the policy initiators, the US the follower, in Israel’s 1967 war, its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, its 2002 invasion of the West Bank, its 40-year settlement-construction enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territories, its disproportionate attacks on Palestinians, its assault on Lebanon. The scope of the lobby’s infiltration of government policymaking councils has been unprecedented during the current Bush administration, and there is strong evidence that neo-conservatives inside the administration—whose ties to Israel’s right wing are undeniable—were the architects of the invasion of Iraq and of the administration’s push to “transform” the Middle East and spread “democracy” throughout the region. Mearsheimer and Walt assert that the Iraq war was “at least partly intended to improve Israel’s strategic position”—a reality that would seem to be confirmed by the fact that some of these same neo-cons authored a strategy paper, entitled “A Clean Break,” in the mid-1990s for then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, laying out a plan for attacking Iraq that was later pushed when the neo-cons entered the Bush administration. The strategy was designed explicitly to assure Israel’s regional dominance, to undermine the Oslo peace process, and to relieve Israel of pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians.

One of the authors, David Wurmser, remains in government as Vice President Richard Cheney’s Middle East adviser; the others, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, were closely involved in Iraq war planning as, respectively, an adviser to the Pentagon and an undersecretary of defense. Almost all the other neo-cons, both Jews and non-Jews, have also compiled long records of advocacy on behalf of Israel. These include Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, and their cheerleaders on the sidelines such as William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Norman Podhoretz, the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, and numerous rightwing, pro-Israeli think tanks in Washington.

In response to the lobby’s pressure on legislators and policymakers, the US has given Israel massive amounts of military and economic aid over the years. Mearsheimer and Walt cite statistics from the US Agency for International Development indicating that between 1976 and 2003, the US gave Israel a total of $140 billion in aid, in constant 2003 dollars. One economist, Thomas Stauffer, who has long tracked aid to Israel, put the figure much higher in 2002, estimating a total of $240 billion in the preceding 30 years, adjusted to current dollars. Israel now receives an automatic $2-3 billion annually in grant aid, mostly military, in addition to large increments of additional aid to compensate for the cost to Israel of such actions as the Lebanon war and the Gaza withdrawal.

Defining the National Interest

The truly important part of the debate over the lobby’s power swirls around the issue of national interests—what constitutes national interests, who determines them, and whether real national interests are harmed by the lobby. A group of commentators and analysts on the left who are highly critical of Israel’s policies have nonetheless been dismissive of the notion that the lobby has particular influence over policy. Their arguments center on the issue of what actually constitutes the US national interest. Noam Chomsky has frequently indicated that Middle East policy is determined largely by what he calls the “tight state-corporate linkage” where domestic power is concentrated—in other words, the military-industrial complex working in cooperation with the government, whose special interests, Chomsky believes, ultimately define US national interests. The Israel lobby has some impact on determining policy in Chomsky’s estimation, but to a far lesser extent and generally only insofar as the lobby’s interests conform to corporate-government interests.

Chomsky and the other left critics of the lobby study essentially believe that US policy has always been directed at the advancement of US imperial and corporate interests, and that Israel, far from leading the US into harmful policies and foreign adventures, has always done the US bidding. The US would pursue its imperial objectives even without Israel, and it has pursued these in areas outside the Middle East, such as Chile, Indonesia, Central America, and elsewhere, without benefit of any lobby. The Israel lobby, in this view, functions as merely a handy adjunct to US policy, not an agent with any control or particular influence.

One thing this argument ignores, however, is that the lobby and its close ties to US arms makers strengthen the ability of the military-industrial complex to control what are defined as US national interests. The Israel lobby holds unquestionable sway over many individual congressmen and executive branch officials, including in the White House, making it difficult for anyone to influence the alleged national interests of the US in ways that the lobby might feel weakened Israel’s uniquely special relationship with the US. Any debate involving this taboo subject, even indirectly, would almost certainly be quashed before it started, buried under paeans for Israel from both Republicans and Democrats.

Afif Safieh, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization Mission in Washington, makes another point. He calls the approach of Chomsky and others on the left a “mechanistic” view that does not allow for the fact that each situation has its own specificity, the specificity in this case being that the junior partner can often “hijack” and “monopolize” decisionmaking on Middle East issues. The left’s argument comes from a kind of determinism that assumes US policy has rarely if ever deviated from a clearly laid-out imperial strategy designed to promote corporate interests.

But simply because the US overthrew a government deemed inimical to American business interests in Chile or supported a dictator in Indonesia where the oil industry had interests does not prove that whenever Israel has attacked Arab countries, as with Egypt in 1967 and Lebanon in 1982, it was acting to serve the United States or was, as Chomsky has alleged, performing a “huge service to the US-Saudis-Energy corporations by smashing secular Arab nationalism.” Israel in no way serves to ensure US access to or control over the Middle East’s oil resources, nor does it work in conjunction with the oil industry.

There is no denying the intricate interweaving of the US military-industrial-financial complex with Israel’s military, industrial, and financial interests, as Chomsky and others on the left contend, but rather than a relationship in which Israel does the bidding of the US corporate-government conglomeration, in reality the entanglement is much more one between two independent players. And the lobby essentially functions to sustain and manipulate the entanglement. Blankfort maintains that the influence of the lobby “is actually underestimated. Not only does it keep Congress in thrall to its demands on issues pertaining to Israel and the Middle East in general, it also serves, less conspicuously, as a powerful lobbying force for maintaining America’s high levels of military spending and for integrating the Israeli arms industry with that of the US.” This integration, Blankfort says, “goes a long way to explain why there has been no significant opposition to the annual military budget from any sector of Congress.”

Israel and its lobby work hand in glove with the US arms industry to advance their combined, usually compatible interests. The relatively few powerful, wealthy families that dominate the Israeli arms industry are just as interested in pressing for aggressively militaristic US and Israeli foreign policies as are the CEOs of US arms corporations. As globalization has progressed, so have the ties of joint ownership and close financial and technological cooperation among the arms corporations of the two nations grown ever closer. The relationship is symbiotic, and the lobby cooperates intimately to keep it alive; lobbyists can go to many in Congress and tell them credibly that if aid to Israel is cut off, thousands of arms-industry jobs in their districts will be lost. The lobby does not simply passively support the desires of the military-industrial complex. It actively twists arms in Congress and the administration to perpetuate acceptance of certain “national interests” that many Americans believe is wrong.

A Two-Headed Monster

As Tony Judt noted, much of the rest of the world now “no longer credits our good faith.” Strong US support for Israel has long roiled Arab public opinion, but since the collapse of the peace process and the start of the Palestinian intifada and Israel’s harsh crackdown in September 2000, opinion polls in Arab and Muslim countries have repeatedly shown strong and growing distrust of the United States, linked principally to US support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and more recently to the Iraq war. Hostile attitudes reach into the 70-80 percent range in many Arab countries. Similar, although not as strong or pervasive, distrust of the US emerges in polls in Europe. The growing anti-US sentiment resulting from the close US relationship with Israel is a principal emphasis in the Mearsheimer-Walt report. The authors point out at the opening of their report that Bush administration policies, heavily influenced by the Israel lobby, have helped produce a “resilient insurgency in Iraq, a sharp rise in world oil prices, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, London, and Amman.” The United States’ “unwavering” support for Israel, they write, has “inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized US security.” They believe the US has actually set aside its own security to advance the interests of another state.

The obvious result has been more terrorism against the US and its allies. Osama bin Laden’s videos and taped statements from the 1990s talk about the Palestinians and his anger with the US because of its alliance with Israel. His anger and that of other radical Islamists is on behalf of Muslims who have been killed and exploited by the US, Israel, and the West for decades, and Palestinians are perhaps the most prominent among these. His anger is shared by millions of the oppressed, and he can attract the radicals among them to his struggle on the basis of his stance as a defender of Palestinians and all oppressed Muslims. This is a danger to the United States, arising directly from the strong US-Israel tie and the lobby’s strenuous efforts to sustain it, that cannot be underestimated.

The tragedy of the present situation is that it has become impossible to separate Israeli from alleged US interests—that is, not what should be real US national interests, but the selfish and self-defined “national interests” of the political-corporate-military complex that, in conjunction with the lobby, dominates the Bush administration, Congress, and both major political parties. The specific groups that now dominate the government are the globalized arms, energy, and financial industries, and the entire military establishments, of the US and of Israel—groups that have quite literally hijacked the government and stripped it of most vestiges of democracy. The “aggressive monster with two ugly heads” that Michel Warschawski speaks of is a reality.

This convergence of manipulated “interests” has a profound effect on US policy choices in the Middle East. If the United States is unable to distinguish the world’s or its own real needs from those of another state and that state’s lobby, then it simply cannot say that it always acts in its own best interests. In the face of the massive human rights violations being committed against Palestinians today, the failure to recognize this reality is where those who belittle the lobby’s power and accept US Middle East policy as simply an unchangeable part of a longstanding strategy are particularly dangerous.

Bill Christison is a former senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.
« Inside America’s powerful Israel lobby AIPAC, Israel’s Intransigence Criticized by a Prominent Jew »

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also i notice your conspicuous silence and non response to all the republican candidates and their relationship to AIPAC and israel

but i saved the best for last

wait til you see the democrats

any comments on what is postd dave?

or just another blithe dismissal wothout even reading or considering the text?

"you are right dave- the tentacles of aipac are far reaching- you didnt know theyve been courting the christian right for some time?"

They are smart, knowledgable and persuasive. Is that a crime in your view? They do not control the Christian Right and the Christian Right is waiting for Jesus to return before they move to Israel.

"nobody can figure out what youve said dave-

all you do is blithely dismiss all comments-

you dont address anything specifically- at all"

That is the problem with critics of Israel who cry about how AIPAC blocks discussion. When people try to discuss things with them, they get the results I am getting. So it winds up being people shouting in each others faces in the name of peace while people who desire sensible and careful discussion are ignored.

this article was written the day after obama said this-

Obama told the Muscatine-area party activists that he supports relaxing restrictions on aid to the Palestinian people. He said they have suffered the most as a result of stalled peace efforts with Israel.

"Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," Obama said while on the final leg of his weekend trip to eastern Iowa.

"If we could get some movement among Palestinian leadership, what I'd like to see is a loosening up of some of the restrictions on providing aid directly to the Palestinian people," he added."
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seems like hes being symapthetic to palestinians and doesnt it?

obama is young and not so wise in the ways of getting elected in america-

overwhelming critical response from the jewish communities forced him to suddenly revise this obviously pro-palestinian statement to a more acceptable pro-israel message-

first it was revised thusly-

"Correction: March 15, 2007, Thursday An article yesterday about competition for Jewish support between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama incorrectly described Mr. Obama's views about the culpability for stalled peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis. Mr. Obama blames Hamas, which controls much of the Palestinian government, for the stalled peace talks; he does not blame Israel."

O- that makes more sense- its the palestinians OWN FAULT that they are suffering!
is that realy what he said?

no- what he really said is nobody is suffering more than the palestinian people- but ok, well pretend he meant they created their own suffering-

now watch how he completely turns around in a scant few days-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That effort begins with a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel: Our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy," he added. "That will always be my starting point."

Obama said: "We should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests. No Israeli prime minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States."

The Illinois senator also called for continued American military assistance to Israel. "We must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs," he said.

Obama added that he was concerned about the Palestinian unity government accord.

Turning to Iran, the presidential hopeful called for direct engagement with the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.

"We need the United States to lead tough-minded diplomacy," he said. "This includes direct engagement with Iran similar to the meetings we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War."

"Tough-minded diplomacy would include real leverage through stronger sanctions," Obama continued. "It would mean more determined U.S diplomacy at the United Nations. It would mean a cooperative strategy with Gulf States who supply Iran with much of the energy resources it needs. It would mean full implementation of U.S. sanctions laws."

Obama blamed what he called the Administration's failed strategy in Iraq for strengthening the Iranian position, placing "Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
but if thats not strong enough theres more-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: Obama's speech was largely written by Mark Lippert, Obama's Senate foreign policy adviser, and Dan Shapiro, a Middle East specialist, now a lobbyist, who is an Obama campaign foreign policy adviser. Shapiro recently was a deputy chief of staff for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and handled international affairs for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). He also served on the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton.]

Thank you so much for your kind introduction and the invitation to meet with you this morning.

Last week, this event was described to me as a small gathering of friends. Looking at all of you here today; seeing so many of you who care about peace in this world; who care about a strong and lasting friendship between Israel and the United States, and who care about what's on the next page of our shared futures, I think "a small gathering of friends" fits this crowd just right.

I want to begin today by telling you a story.

Back in January of 2006, I made my first trip to the Holy Land. It is a place unlike any other on this earth ­ a place filled with so much promise of what we truly can be as people; a place where we've learned how in a flash, violence and hatred and intolerance can turn that promise to rubble and send too many lives to their early graves.

Most will travel to the holy sites: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock or the Western Wall. They make a journey to be humbled before God. I too am blessed to have seen Israel this way, up close and on the ground.

But I am also fortunate to have seen Israel from the air.

On my journey that January day, I flew on an IDF helicopter to the border zone. The helicopter took us over the most troubled and dangerous areas and that narrow strip between the West Bank and the Mediterranean Sea. At that height, I could see the hills and the terrain that generations have walked across. I could truly see how close everything is and why peace through security is the only way for Israel.

Our helicopter landed in the town of Kiryat Shmona on the border. What struck me first about the village was how familiar it looked. The houses and streets looked like ones you might find in a suburb in America. I could imagine young children riding their bikes down the streets. I could imagine the sounds of their joyful play just like my own daughters. There were cars in the driveway. The shrubs were trimmed. The families were living their lives.

Then, I saw a house that had been hit with one of Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets.

The family who lived in the house was lucky to be alive. They had been asleep in another part when the rocket hit. They described the explosion. They talked about the fire and the shrapnel. They spoke about what might have been if the rocket had come screaming into their home at another time when they weren't asleep but sitting peacefully in the now destroyed part of the house.

It is an experience I keep close to my heart. Not because it is unique, but because we know that too many others have seen the same kind of destruction, have lost their loved ones to suicide bombers and live in fear of when the next attack might hit. Just six months after I visited, Hezbollah launched four thousand rocket attacks just like the one that destroyed the home in Kiryat Shmona, and kidnapped Israeli service members. And we pray for all of the service members who have been kidnapped: Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser, and I met with his family this week. I offered to help in any way I can.

It is important to remember this history-that Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Lebanon only to have Iran supply Hezbollah with thousands of rockets.

Our job is to never forget that the threat of violence is real. Our job is to renew the United States' efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do not share this vision. Our job is to do more than lay out another road map; our job is to rebuild the road to real peace and lasting security throughout the region.

That effort begins with a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel: our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That will always be my starting point. And when we see all of the growing threats in the region: from Iran to Iraq to the resurgence of al-Qaeda to the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah, that loyalty and that friendship will guide me as we begin to lay the stones that will build the road that takes us from the current instability to lasting peace and security.

It won't be easy. Some of those stones will be heavy and tough for the United States to carry. Others with be heavy and tough for Israel to carry. And even more will be difficult for the world. But together, we will begin again.

One of the heavy stones that currently rest at the United States' feet is Iraq. Until we lift this burden from our foreign policy, we cannot rally the world to our values and vision.

As many of you know, I opposed this war from the beginning ­ in part because I believed that giving this President the open-ended authority to invade Iraq would lead to the open-ended occupation we find ourselves in today.

Now our soldiers find themselves in the crossfire of someone else's civil war. More than 3,100 have given the last full measure of devotion to their country. This war has fueled terrorism and helped galvanize terrorist organizations. And it has made the world less safe.

That is why I advocate a phased redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq to begin no later than May first with the goal of removing all combat forces from Iraq by March 2008. In a civil war where no military solution exists, this redeployment remains our best leverage to pressure the Iraqi government to achieve the political settlement between its warring factions that can slow the bloodshed and promote stability.

My plan also allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain and prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for international terrorism and reduce the risk of all-out chaos. In addition, we will redeploy our troops to other locations in the region, reassuring our allies that we will stay engaged in the Middle East. And my plan includes a robust regional diplomatic strategy that includes talking to Syria and Iran ­ something this Administration has finally embraced.

The U.S. military has performed valiantly and brilliantly in Iraq. Our troops have done all that we have asked them to do and more. But a consequence of the Administration's failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran's strategic position; reduce U.S. credibility and influence in the region; and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril. These are not the signs of a well-paved road. It is time for profound change.

As the U.S. redeploys from Iraq, we can recapture lost influence in the Middle East. We can refocus our efforts to critical, yet neglected priorities, such as combating international terrorism and winning the war in Afghanistan. And we can, then, more effectively deal with one of the greatest threats to the United States, Israel and world peace: Iran. Iran's President Ahmadinejad's regime is a threat to all of us. His words contain a chilling echo of some of the world's most tragic history.

Unfortunately, history has a terrible way of repeating itself. President Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust. He held a conference in his country, claiming it was a myth. But we know the Holocaust was as real as the 6 million who died in mass graves at Buchenwald, or the cattle cars to Dachau or whose ashes clouded the sky at Auschwitz. We have seen the pictures. We have walked the halls of the Holocaust museum in Washington and Yad Vashem. We have touched the tattoos on loved-ones arms. After 60 years, it is time to deny the deniers.

In the 21st century, it is unacceptable that a member state of the United Nations would openly call for the elimination of another member state. But that is exactly what he has done. Neither Israel nor the United States has the luxury of dismissing these outrages as mere rhetoric.

The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Iranian nuclear weapons would destabilize the region and could set off a new arms race. Some nations in the region, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, could fall away from restraint and rush into a nuclear contest that could fuel greater instability in the region-that's not just bad for the Middle East, but bad for the world, making it a vastly more dangerous and unpredictable place. Other nations would feel great pressure to accommodate Iranian demands. Terrorist groups with Iran's backing would feel emboldened to act even more brazenly under an Iranian nuclear umbrella. And as the A.Q. Kahn network in Pakistan demonstrated, Iran could spread this technology around the world.

To prevent this worst-case scenario, we need the United States to lead tough-minded diplomacy.

This includes direct engagement with Iran similar to the meetings we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War, laying out in clear terms our principles and interests. Tough-minded diplomacy would include real leverage through stronger sanctions. It would mean more determined U.S diplomacy at the United Nations. It would mean harnessing the collective power of our friends in Europe who are Iran's major trading partners. It would mean a cooperative strategy with Gulf States who supply Iran with much of the energy resources it needs. It would mean unifying those states to recognize the threat of Iran and increase pressure on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. It would mean full implementation of U.S. sanctions laws. And over the long term, it would mean a focused approach from us to finally end the tyranny of oil, and develop our own alternative sources of energy to drive the price of oil down.

We must also persuade other nations such as Saudi Arabia to recognize common interests with Israel in dealing with Iran. We should stress to the Egyptians that they help the Iranians and do themselves no favors by failing to adequately prevent the smuggling of weapons and cash by Iran into Gaza.

The United States' leverage is strengthened when we have many nations with us. It puts us in a place where sanctions could actually have a profound impact on Iran's economy. Iran is highly dependent on imports and foreign investment, credit and technology. And an environment where our allies see that these types of investments in Iran are not in the world's best interests, could help bring Iran to the table.

We have no quarrel with the Iranian people. They know that President Ahamadinejad is reckless, irresponsible, and inattentive to their day-to-day needs which is why they sent him a rebuke at the ballot box this fall. And we hope more of them will speak out. There is great hope in their ability to see his hatred for what it is: hatred and a threat to peace in the region.

At the same time, we must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs. This would help Israel maintain its military edge and deter and repel attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza. And when Israel is attacked, we must stand up for Israel's legitimate right to defend itself. Last summer, Hezbollah attacked Israel. By using Lebanon as an outpost for terrorism, and innocent people as shields, Hezbollah has also engulfed that entire nation in violence and conflict, and threatened the fledgling movement for democracy there. That's why we have to press for enforcement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which demands the cessation of arms shipments to Hezbollah, a resolution which Syria and Iran continue to disregard. Their support and shipment of weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas, which threatens the peace and security in the region, must end.

These are great challenges that we face. And in moments like these, true allies do not walk away. For six years, the administration has missed opportunities to increase the United States' influence in the region and help Israel achieve the peace she wants and the security she needs. The time has come for us to seize those opportunities.

The Israeli people, and Prime Minister Olmert, have made clear that they are more than willing to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will result in two states living side by side in peace and security. But the Israelis must trust that they have a true Palestinian partner for peace. That is why we must strengthen the hands of Palestinian moderates who seek peace and that is why we must maintain the isolation of Hamas and other extremists who are committed to Israel's destruction.

The U.S. and our partners have put before Hamas three very simple conditions to end this isolation: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce the use of violence; and abide by past agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

We should all be concerned about the agreement negotiated among Palestinians in Mecca last month. The reports of this agreement suggest that Hamas, Fatah, and independent ministers would sit in a government together, under a Hamas Prime Minister, without any recognition of Israel, without a renunciation of violence, and with only an ambiguous promise to "respect" previous agreements.

This should concern us all because it suggests that Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Palestinian leader I believe is committed to peace, felt forced to compromise with Hamas. However, if we are serious about the Quartet's conditions, we must tell the Palestinians this is not good enough.

But as I said at the outset, Israel will have some heavy stones to carry as well. Its history has been full of tough choices in search of peace and security.

Yitzhak Rabin had the vision to reach out to longtime enemies. Ariel Sharon had the determination to lead Israel out of Gaza. These were difficult, painful decisions that went to the heart of Israel's identity as a nation.

Many Israelis I talked to during my visit last year told me that they were prepared to make sacrifices to give their children a chance to know peace. These were people of courage who wanted a better life. And I know these are difficult times and it can be easy to lose hope. But we owe it to our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, and to all those who have fallen, to keep searching for peace and security -- even though it can seem distant. This search is in the best interests of Israel. It is in the best interests of the United States. It is in the best interests of all of us.

We can and we should help Israelis and Palestinians both fulfill their national goals: two states living side by side in peace and security. Both the Israeli and Palestinian people have suffered from the failure to achieve this goal. The United States should leave no stone unturned in working to make that goal a reality.

But in the end, we also know that we should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests. No Israeli Prime Minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States.

We must be partners ­ we must be active partners. Diplomacy in the Middle East cannot be done on the cheap. Diplomacy is measured by patience and effort. We cannot continue to have trips consisting of little more than photo-ops with little movement in between. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is served by this approach.

Peace with security. That is the Israeli people's overriding wish.

It is what I saw in the town of Fassouta on the border with Lebanon. There are 3,000 residents of different faiths and histories.

There is a community center supported by Chicago's own Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago. It is where the education of the next generation has begun: in a small village, all faiths and nationalities, living together with mutual respect.

I met with the people from the village and they gave me a tour of this wonderful place. There was a moment when the young girls came in and they played music and began to dance.

After a few moments, I thought about my own daughters, Sasha and Malia and how they too could dream and dance in a place like this: a place of renewal and restoration. Proof, that in the heart of so much peril, there were signs of life and hope and promise-that the universal song for peace plays on.

Thank you.

you are right dave- the tentacles of aipac are far reaching- you didnt know theyve been courting the christian right for some time?

although lets not make any mistake about it- while they let the christians imagine they will have a part and place in the promised land- christians will not be allowed-
but you know what? most christians dont seem to be aware of this aspect of returning to israel-

but it doesnt matter, you know why?
christian prophecy demands that they kill the jews once they occupy the city of god-

so we have 2 groups who have a joined interest in making israel strong- both intending to exclude or defeat the other when its accomplished-

lovely!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Inside America's powerful Israel lobby

AIPAC's three-day summit included fiery evangelical oratory, adoration for Dick Cheney -- and new plans for going after Iran.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected since it was first published.

By Gregory Levey

Vice President Dick Cheney delivers remarks Monday at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington.

March 16, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- At the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this week in Washington, a conservative Christian couple from eastern Tennessee told me that their son had decided to join the Israeli army. It was one of many surreal moments during the three-day gathering hosted by AIPAC, the lobbying group devoted to ensuring close U.S.-Israel ties that remains extraordinarily influential in Washington. "We just love God, and we just love Israel," the couple beamed, when I asked why they had come to the conference.

Amid an energized and at times almost circuslike atmosphere, just about everyone in attendance shared two main preoccupations: the 2008 U.S. presidential election and confronting Iran. And this year's conference saw record attendance: more than 6,000 people, coming from every state in the country and exceeding last year's crowd of around 5,000. Many of them were American Jews, of course, but the evangelical Christian community also made a strong showing. For those feeling apocalyptic about the turmoil in the Middle East, pastor John Hagee was there to greet them. Of the many prominent speakers at the conference, Hagee got one of the most enthusiastic receptions.

"The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awoken!" Hagee proclaimed, taking the microphone at the opening dinner reception on Sunday. The electrified crowd -- most of it Jewish -- roared in support, pounding on the tables. Hagee went on to declare the United Nations a "political brothel" and asserted that Israel must never give up land. He agreed with Israeli writer Dore Gold that granting part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians would be "tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban." And, after rebuking Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he led the crowd in a chant of "Israel lives!" urging them to "shout it from the mountaintops!"

During Hagee's oratory, an AIPAC delegate sitting near me said, "I'm going to vote for him instead of McCain."

AIPAC, whose own literature notes that it has been described by the New York Times as "the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel," has been highly successful in building strong relationships with both U.S. political parties. This year's conference was attended by everyone from Vice President Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and other 2008 presidential contenders), as well as former CIA director James Woolsey. Leaders from Congress were there, as were numerous officials from the State Department and White House.

On Monday morning, Cheney got a warm reception and forceful applause for familiar speech lines, such as his assertion that the "only option" against terrorists is to "go on the offensive." Many rank-and-file members of AIPAC seemed to be spoiling for military action against Iran -- "We have to do to them what we did to Saddam," one delegate told me -- but AIPAC's leadership remained strikingly circumspect about it. No AIPAC leaders mentioned war with Iran in the speeches, receptions or panel discussions I attended, and very few of the prominent outside speakers did either. At times this put them at odds with the grass-roots delegates; Marvin Feuer, AIPAC's director of policy and government affairs, was verbally attacked by a conference attendee as "weak" when he downplayed military options against Iran during a Q&A session.


Yes No
Yes No

Yes No

But AIPAC leaders are pushing for a different kind of offensive against Iran: a new program of sanctions much harsher than any prior one imposed through the United Nations. The plan, which one panelist called a "quiet campaign" to strike at Iran on the financial battlefield, would include increased pressures on foreign allies who do business with Iran, a U.S.-wide campaign of divestment, and other measures intended to put crippling economic pressure on the Islamic republic. Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer of Missouri, described how she has worked to restrict the state's investments in companies that do business with Iran, and urged AIPAC members to lobby their own state governments to institute similar policies. Steven Perles, a lawyer, explained how it was possible to tie up the assets of the Iranian government and financial institutions by engaging them in lawsuits for their funding of terrorist groups.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for some time been pushing for such efforts, and in a closed-door briefing during the conference he said that they could prove fatal to Iran: "Fewer and fewer companies will enter Iran. More and more will leave. Investment dollars and the technology it buys will dry up. The lifeline of a hated regime will be cut, its future imperiled."

In addition to the many panels at the conference, which often felt akin to pep rallies, delegates also attended "lobbying labs," where AIPAC staff schooled them on how to effectively persuade their congressional representatives to follow AIPAC policies. These sessions were not open to the media, nor even mentioned on the schedule of events distributed to members of the press. But AIPAC leaders repeatedly urged delegates to attend them. And on Tuesday, the organization deployed its army of lobbyists to push for new sanctions against Iran, which are contained in a new bill called the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, introduced by Democrat Tom Lantos and Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

When the thousands of lobbyists descended on Capitol Hill, they were greeted by nearly every U.S. senator and more than half the members of the House of Representatives -- approximately 500 meetings were held between AIPAC representatives and members of Congress on Tuesday alone. In addition to pushing for the sanctions plan, the goal was to showcase the strength of AIPAC and establish more ties for future communication and lobbying.

Next page: "I'd really like to see Obama in person, but Hillary is better for Israel"

nobody can figure out what youve said dave-

all you do is blithely dismiss all comments-

you dont address anything specifically- at all

now you are imagining that we are here trying to resove the problem of israel/palestine?
who ever said that?

even here you dont address even one single point made- you just counter with a 'no it isnt-'

thats not a discussion- thats just someone with their eyes closed shaking their head back and forth to every proof shown them-

just absolute denial and when that wears out, then attacks on personalities.

so i guess now the point is to show you that AIPAC does have political power in america-

People who happen to think the same about some issues do not because of that operate as an organized unit or power bloc. And if you choose to define a power bloc which includes Dick Cheny, it will be powerful but not Jewish. Since the people lumped together as a power bloc have their own ideas based on their own political inclinations, it is absurd to view them as examples of the power of AIPAC.

The problem of the argument here for the vast power of AIPAC is that it is a matter of how the folks arguing for the view that AIPAC has enormous power have defined their terms. If someone supports Israel that shows the power of AIPAC in their view.

It seems to me that if someone agrees with my reasoning, that would be seen by those who view AIPAC with awe as an example of the power of AIPAC not the power of my reasoning.

I on the other hand think that if people think what I say makes sense and what those who disagree with what I say on this forum does not, it would show the power of my words and reasoning not the power of AIPAC. But there is no way to resolve that issue.

see dave, its a little more than a few people who make some simplistic flawed reasoning and then try to fit the pieces together to justify their anti-semitism - i think thats what you believe-

pere' gave some extraordinary information there-

no one is just saying things out of some paranoid delusion dave-

there is a real power bloc that is at work and real people in it-

What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they are also part of one big neoconservative family -- an extended clan of spouses, children, and friends who have known each other for generations.

Neoconservatives are former liberals (which explains the "neo" prefix) who advocate an aggressive unilateralist vision of U.S. global supremacy, which includes a close strategic alliance with Israel. Let's start with one of the founding fathers of the extended neocon clan: Irving Kristol. His extensive resume includes waging culture wars for the CIA against the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War and calling for an American "imperial" role during the Vietnam War. Papa Kristol, who has been credited with defining the major themes of neoconservative thought, is married to Gertrude Himmelfarb, a neoconservative powerhouse on her own. Her studies of the Victorian era in Britain helped inspire the men who sold Bush on the idea of "compassionate conservatism."

The son of this proud couple is none other that William Kristol, the crown prince of the neoconservative clique and editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. In 1997, he founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a front group which cemented the powerful alliance between right-wing Republicans like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, Christian and Catholic Right leaders like Gary Bauer and William Bennett, and the neocons behind a platform of global U.S. military dominance.

Irving Kristol's most prominent disciple is Richard Perle, who was until Thursday the Defense Policy Board chairman, is also a "resident scholar" at the American Enterprise Institute, which is housed in the same building as PNAC. Perle himself married into neocon royalty when he wed the daughter of his professor at the University of Chicago, the late Alfred Wohlstetter -- the man who helped both his son-in-law and his fellow student Paul Wolfowitz get their start in Washington more than 30 years ago.

Perle's own protege is Douglas Feith, who is now Wolfowitz's deputy for policy and is widely known for his right-wing Likud position. And why not? His father, Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist Dalck Feith, was once a follower of the great revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his native Poland back in the 1930s. The two Feiths were honored together in 1997 by the right-wing Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).

The AEI has long been a major nexus for such inter-familial relationships. A long-time collaborator with Perle, Michael Ledeen is married to Barbara Ledeen, a founder and director of the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum (IWF), who is currently a major player in the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and another neo-con power couple -- David and Meyrav Wurmser -- co-authored a 1996 memorandum for Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu outlining how to break the Oslo peace process and invade Iraq as the first step to transforming the Middle East.

Though she doesn't focus much on foreign-policy issues, Lynne Cheney also hangs her hat at AEI. Her husband Dick Cheney recently chose Victoria Nuland to become his next deputy national security adviser. Nuland, as it turns out, is married to Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol's main comrade-in-arms and the co-founder of PNAC.

Bob's father, Donald Kagan, is a Yale historian who converted from a liberal Democrat to a staunch neocon in the 1970s. On the eve of the 2000 presidential elections, Donald and his other son, Frederick, published "While America Sleeps," a clarion call to increase defense spending. Since then, the three Kagan men have written reams of columns warning that the currently ballooning Pentagon budget is simply not enough to fund the much-desired vision of U.S. global supremacy.

And which infamous ex-Reaganite do the Kagans and another leading neocon family have in common? None other than Iran-contra veteran Elliott Abrams.

Now the director of Near Eastern Affairs in Bush's National Security Council, Abrams worked closely with Bob Kagan back in the Reagan era. He is also the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, long-time editor of the influential conservative Jewish publication Commentary, and his wife, Midge Decter, a fearsome polemicist in her own right.

Podhoretz, like Kristol Sr., helped invent neo-conservatism in the late 1960s. He and Decter created a formidable political team as leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger in 1980, when they worked with Donald Rumsfeld to pound the last nail into the coffin of detente and promote the rise of Ronald Reagan. In addition to being Abrams' father-in-law, Norman Podhoretz is also the father of John Podhoretz, a columnist for the Murdoch-owned New York Post and frequent guest on the Murdoch-owned Fox News channel.

As editor of Commentary, Norman offered writing space to rising stars of the neocon movement for more than 30 years. His proteges include former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Pipes, who was Ronald Reagan's top advisor on the "Evil Empire," as the president liked to call the Soviet Union. His son, Daniel Pipes, has also made a career out of battling "evil," which in his case is Islam. And to tie it all up neatly, in 2002, Podhoretz received the highest honor bestowed by the AEI: the Irving Kristol award.

This list of intricate, overlapping connections is hardly exhaustive or perhaps even surprising. But it helps reveal an important fact. Contrary to appearances, the neocons do not constitute a powerful mass political movement. They are instead a small, tighly-knit clan whose incestuous familial and personal connections, both within and outside the Bush administration, have allowed them grab control of the future of American foreign policy.

JIm Lobe

"nancy went to israel last week and got her marching orders and march she does-

well, it is what it is- but youve offered no rebuttal.
complaints about how i pesent the case-

and your rebuttal is that i cant "prove' if theyre operating out of self intereset or fear?

no one said fear dave- self interest is strong enough

politicians generally know which side their bread is buttered on."

I do not view that as reasoned argument. Nancy Pelosi got her marching orders from whom? Who gave them? AIPAC is people. Who told her what to do and what did they say? People are falling all over themselves trying to be Nancy Pelosi's friends right now.

People say look at all the support there is for Israel. It can not be reasonable. So it must be AIPAC and wealthy Jews at work. What are the mechanisms by which these very different folks get together, make up their minds, and give every national politician orders?

dave im not sure what to even call your responses-

you make a point (as opinion unsubstantiated)
and i answer that point and substantiate it with many posts-

at some time you either say- no youre wrong and this is my proof- and then provide it-

or you say- hmm you make a good point but i disagree here- and do so-

but all you do is make a ridiculou cartoon out of what i say- restate it incorrectly and in strange absolutist terms-

and still manage to never address the point-

and then after all the proof- you demand proof for intangibles like someone s intention!

point- counterpoint
proof- counterproof

see how that works?

assertion- proof provided
response?
ridiculous lampooning and mischaracterization of the assertion in extreme inflammatory style-

ok dave- whatever works for you

actually dave i havent said anythin one way or the other-

what ive done is presented a body of easily obtainable information -

you are free to do so also-

i didnt say youre a tool of aipac dave- what a ridiculous assertion that would be indeed-

this is your entire statement dave-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That is mysticism. We now have a fictional AIPAC Caucus. And they do AIPAC's will unasked as if they have a mental channel to AIPAC and do its will. AIPAC is a collection of individuals who sponsor dinners and other events. They do not control the world. Nor do all Jews do what they want.

Nancy Pelosi is a very tough individual with good sense. She and the Democratic Party do not follow AIPAC as if it is a ruling clique.

Why can't we get rid of the mysticism and slogans so we can talk sensibly about what actually is.

April 3, 2007 2:48 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

while making dramatic overstatements like-"They do not control the world. Nor do all Jews do what they want."
may seem reasonable- that is not what i implied or ever said-

you are coming to these conclusons on your own-

if that is your conclusion, fine- but as i never ever put words in your mouth- nor dramatically overstate your position in any way- its not only zero response- its kind of tricky-

no, my posts were a response to your statement that nancy is an independent woman-
indeed she is dave and the elections are still a year away, and theres always 2012-

and while bush complains about her going to syria as an unwise move- anyone with half a brain can see that his complaint is really that she is forcing herself into the center od world attention and gaining credit as a world player, and upstaging bush-

now isnt it strange that bush should so weakly bleat his opposition, but as the president of the free world does nothing whatsoever to stop it?

what could he do? why dave, alot!
he could trump her trip by sending a bigger world player, thus distracting attention from her- but he doesnt.

nancy went to israel last week and got her marching orders and march she does-

well, it is what it is- but youve offered no rebuttal.
complaints about how i pesent the case-

and your rebuttal is that i cant "prove' if theyre operating out of self intereset or fear?

no one said fear dave- self interest is strong enough

politicians generally know which side their bread is buttered on.

so your only response-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You say I and anyone else who speaks well of Israel and denies your certitudes about Israel is influenced by or a tool of AIPAC? Then you list everyone who likes APIAC as having been forced to do so out of fear of them. Hence you convert people with common interests into examples of the dominance of AIPAC. You have not shown that people like Pelosi and Brownback are insincere and operationg out of fear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
is false-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You say I and anyone else who speaks well of Israel and denies your certitudes about Israel is influenced by or a tool of AIPAC?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

absolutely not i said no such thing EVER

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Then you list everyone who likes APIAC as having been forced to do so out of fear of them. Hence you convert people with common interests into examples of the dominance of AIPAC."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

no, i listed everyone who speaks publicly to aipac issues to aipac- theres a difference- i cant say if they like aipac or not- i also posted several articles by people who have expressed outright fear of the power if aipac- like the senator.

there is also no evidence as to whwether their interests are the same-

actually this is a complete turnaround for nancy pelosi whose been outright against war, with aipac she has changed the much touted iraqi war funding bill unrecognizable-

you are surmising this from the information given-

i made no such statements

you came also to this conclusion on your own from the info provided

interesting

ok

"more likely hone in on some microscopic sentence and distract the conversation in a new misleading direction

i notice you werent able to find any insult on my part, as you didnt post any- but manners are still manners dave."

You say I and anyone else who speaks well of Israel and denies your certitudes about Israel is influenced by or a tool of AIPAC? Then you list everyone who likes APIAC as having been forced to do so out of fear of them. Hence you convert people with common interests into examples of the dominance of AIPAC. You have not shown that people like Pelosi and Brownback are insincere and operationg out of fear.

predictably dave will appear, not acknowledge anything whatsoever, or more likely hone in on some microscopic sentence and distract the conversation in a new misleading direction- whioch when asnwered will also be unacknowledged,

or--- just copy and post what has been printed with arbitrary dismissals and not a verified reason in the bunch-

lets see which it will be today-

i wont ven mention that you just ignored my greeting as if i didn tmake it- o wiat- i did mention it, didnt i.

and your complaint about me is that i--pester?

i notice you werent able to find any insult on my part, as you didnt post any- but manners are still manners dave.

id say your assessment that me posting my opinions constitutes pestering to you is highly subjective

really dave this is just shooting fish in a barrel- just give me any name of anyone running for president and wel see what their relationship to aipac is-

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES SPEAK-

````````````````````
SEN. SAM BROWNBACK: Thank you in your energy. Thank you in your prayers. Thank you for standing with Israel in this difficult time. I close with noting that the recently elected Prime Minister of Israel addressed a joint session of Congress about a month or so ago. And he spoke there, and I sat as I listened to him give an eloquent speech, uniting speech, thinking to myself, the United States doesn't have a closer partner in the world than Israel today. And it is true. And it's important for us, when our friend is in difficulty, Israel, that we stand by them in this difficult time. Thank you for being here. God bless you all. God bless the United States of America. And God bless the Israeli people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
next

newt gingrich speech to aipac-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every year our enemies grow stronger and bolder.

None of this is a secret.

Achmadinejad the current leader of the Iranian dictatorship asserts in public on television “we must defeat the Anglo-Saxons and eliminate Israel from the face of the earth” and goes on to assert “it is easy to imagine a time in the near future when Israel and the United States will no longer exist.”

Two or three nuclear weapons on Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem would be a second Holocaust and could occur at any time
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
just a snippet- you get the drift-

next

rudolph giuliani-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
politics.
He threw Arafat from the Lincoln center hall during a show because he knew Arafat was one of the most murderous Islamic terrorist’s leaders.
He denied Saudi Arabian donation by a Saudi prince that criticized Israel and US~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
next

john mccain
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 20, 2001

TALKING POINTS OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN - AIPAC SUMMER SEMINAR SERIES

Thank you. I am honored to be here to exchange views on our shared aspiration of security for the people of Israel.

AIPAC is critical to realizing this ambition. AIPAC's support for Israel, and your involvement in its work, are never more important than when Israel is at risk.

The current crisis, and the threat of broader conflict in the region, underscore the importance of America's bedrock commitment to Israel and her people.

Sadly, many Palestinians share an opposite goal - forcing Israel to succumb to extremist Palestinian demands and putting Israel's existence at risk by violent means

Oslo was premised on the notion that Israel and the Palestinians could live together. Now that hopes for peaceful coexistence, and negotiations for permanent peace, have been dashed by the bitter failures of the last eight years, a new realism has infused Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.

In addition to her moral commitment to Israel's security, America must provide Israel with whatever military equipment and technology she requires to defend herself, above and beyond what we supply today if necessary. Our support for Israel must intensify, as threats to Israeli security have intensified.

No more moral equivalence in dealing with the parties. No more pressure on Israel to make concessions that are simply pocketed by the Palestinians and countered with violence against innocent civilians.

We also need to better address the threat posed by Israel's neighbors. I have called for a policy of "rogue state rollback," a new Reagan Doctrine in which American policy toward rogue regimes, including states implacably hostile to the existence of Israel, is premised on supporting forces within and outside those countries dedicated to the overthrow of ruling dictators and the liberation of their peoples.

We must also renew the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Terror as a tool of state policy cannot stand.

We must do a better job of countering the proliferation of high-tech weaponry and components to Israel's neighbors by Russia, China, and North Korea.

President Bush discussed Russian technology transfers to Iran at length with President Putin in their summit meeting last week, and I hope concrete action by the Russians will follow.

Congress is currently considering renewal of the Export Administration Act, which governs exports of sensitive technologies with both civilian and military applications. Friends of Israel must work to ensure that Congress does not unduly ease export restrictions, as some seek to do, to prevent dangerous American technologies from ending up as components of weapons systems deployed against Israel.

Israel and the United States have worked together to successfully develop the Arrow theater missile defense system, which offers protection against Iraqi Scuds. We are now jointly developing an improved version of Arrow to protect Israel against the missile threat from Iran. We should continue and expand this collaboration to defend Israel against missiles fired by hostile neighbors.

Congress and the Administration should also reassess the composition of our aid to Egypt. We have an obligation to provide assistance to Egypt under the Camp David Accords, and we will stand by it.

But we should consider giving more economic aid than military assistance to Egypt. This would directly benefit Egypt's people and encourage stability.

The people of America and Israel share a historic obligation to promote freedom of worship overseas and fight religious persecution wherever it exists. In many countries, religious minorities pay a terrible price for their beliefs. We should do what we can as a nation to defend their right to worship freely.

Most important to advancing our interests and values in the Middle East is leadership. I am confident the new Administration will articulate a coherent and forceful policy to safeguard Israel and defend our interests in the region.

America's unequivocal support for Israel  not evenhandedness, not moral equivalence, not winking at Palestinian violence  is the best guarantor of peace in the Middle East. We must restore vision and moral clarity to a situation that has brought Israel to the brink of an abyss of domestic terrorism and regional war.

Thank you for being here. AIPAC's work on behalf of America and Israel is valuable and important. With friends like you, Israel, and American interests in the Middle East, are well served. Thank you.
####

i think that is pretty solidly clear, dont you?
notice the date on that dave-

next-
tom tacredo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With our current immigration policies, "We are risking the development of a bilingual nation and a multicultural nation, which is almost an oxymoron," Tancredo has said. "It is very difficult to maintain something like that, especially [under] the kind of threat situation we're in today with fundamentalist Islam" (OneNewsNow.com,February 12, 2007).

The battle against immigration, says Tancredo, is part of the global war on terrorism. "The very survival of Western Civilization is at risk," Tancredo has warned; he believes "we are in a clash of civilizations" (cited on the teamtancredo.com website).

Formerly a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, Tancredo now calls for a troop deployment to Afghanistan and other locations where the U.S. global war on terrorism is being waged. He says that the civil war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites is a process of establishing equilibrium between the deep schisms in Islam and that there is no need for the U.S. military to referee this bloody process.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
his issues are really immigration- but anyone with half a brain can tell the phrase clash of civilizations is sam huntingtons anti-muslim tirade-

im getting tired-

i imagine this is enough for now-
next the democrats

I think we need to take the mysticism out of AIPAC and look at the facts.

"All who care about peace in the Middle East are grateful for your strength and wisdom in guiding AIPAC."

AIPAC has a lot of bright people who know much about Israel, the United States and the world. Some view them as evil while many others think they are wise. People heed those they deem wise. And they have various and complex reasons for deeming them wise. Nancy Pelosi has known the person she is talking to for many years.

"Californians, North and South, are proud of your great leadership at AIPAC."

Nancy Pelosi is an expert about what Californians think.

"“The people of Israel long for peace and are willing to make the sacrifices to achieve it. We hope that peace and security come soon – and that this moment of opportunity is not lost. As Israel continues to take risks for peace, she will have no friend more steadfast than the United States.

“In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel ‘as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.’

“The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever.”"

I am sure Nancy was sincere. Her seat is and was very safe.

There is an obvious cause and effect confusion in the minds of those who think AIPAC controls what people like Nancy Pelosi say and think. She and others pay attention to AIPAC because they support Israel and are sure that is the right thing to do. They do not support Isreal because they are afraid of AIPAC, financially beholding to AIPAC, or prone to obey.

but let nancy speak for herself-

````````````````````````````````````````````

Nancy Pelosi Delivers Speech to
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
From Official Website of
Nancy Pelosi House Democratic Leader 23may2005

nancy pelosi

Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at their 2005 Policy Conference tonight. Pelosi discussed the relationship between the United States and Israel and the continued effort for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Below are her remarks:

“Thank you, Amy Friedkin, my dear friend for so many years. Californians, North and South, are proud of your great leadership at AIPAC. And to Bernice Manocherian, President of AIPAC, thank you. All who care about peace in the Middle East are grateful for your strength and wisdom in guiding AIPAC. As a native of Baltimore, I take special pride of your incoming President, Howard Friedman, who will continue in the tradition of outstanding leadership at AIPAC.

“I also want to acknowledge all of the students who are here. It is great to see so many young people taking such an interest in public affairs, especially on one of the critical issues of our time: peace in the Middle East.

“This spring, I was in Israel as part of a congressional trip that also took us to Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. One of the most powerful experiences was taking a helicopter toward Gaza, over the path of the security fence. We set down in a field that belonged to a local kibbutz. It was a cool but sunny day, and the field was starting to bloom with mustard. Mustard is a crop that grows in California, and it felt at that moment as if I were home.

“And then we were told that the reason we had to land in that field, as opposed to our actual destination, was because there had been an infiltration that morning, and they weren’t sure how secure the area was. And that point alone brought us back to the daily reality of Israel: even moments of peace and beauty are haunted by the specter of violence.

“While in Israel, we met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Vice Premier Shimon Perez. From them and from other leaders, we heard something I had not heard in a long time: cautious optimism. This was an attitude quite different from the one that confronted us when I spoke to AIPAC two years ago.

“One thing, however is unchanged: America’s commitment to the safety and security of the State of Israel is unwavering. America and Israel share an unbreakable bond: in peace and war; and in prosperity and in hardship.

“Prime Minister Sharon’s leadership of Israel at this crucial time has been remarkable. He has brought Israel through an extremely challenging period, and now he has made the difficult decision that it is in Israel’s national security interest to disengage from Gaza.

“In the next few months, Israeli settlers will be evacuated entirely from Gaza and from four settlements in the northern West Bank. This courageous decision is gut-wrenching for Israel.

“Israel’s decision can be a decisive milestone on the road to peace. If the Palestinians agree to coordinate with Israel on the evacuation, establish the rule of law, and demonstrate a capacity to govern, the world may be convinced that finally there is a real partner for peace.

“Any progress on the Roadmap for Peace must be based on real change on the ground, as evidenced by the establishment of an accountable, and reconstituted Palestinian security force that prevents terrorism, not promotes it.

“Fortunately, Palestinian Authority President Abbas is no Yasir Arafat. He has condemned terrorism in Arabic, stating that it prolongs the day that the Palestinian goal of statehood can be achieved, and, at least as significant, stating that terrorism is immoral. He has begun to restructure the security services. All that is commendable.

“But he has not removed Arafat’s corrupt cronies from positions of power, nor has he moved to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. That is, I am sorry to say, cause for concern. President Abbas has said his goal is to establish the rule of law, but he has done nowhere near enough to realize that vision, and now he is confronted with a huge challenge: by the end of summer, Israel will be out of Gaza.

“Can Gaza become a pilot case for self-government for a Palestinian state? Or will it become a terrorist haven, a launching pad for rockets into Israel?

“President Abbas must act, for his own good, against those he must know are his enemies and are the enemies of the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

“The United States, just as Israel, wants to see him succeed. That is why I was so pleased when President Bush dispatched Jim Wolfensohn to help with the Gaza withdrawal. It is why I supported additional aid to the Palestinians in the Emergency Supplemental bill that recently passed Congress.

“There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.

“The greatest threat to Israel’s right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology.

“Proliferation represents a clear threat to Israel and to America. It must be confronted by an international coalition against proliferation, with a commitment and a coalition every bit as strong as our commitment to the war against terror.

“The people of Israel long for peace and are willing to make the sacrifices to achieve it. We hope that peace and security come soon – and that this moment of opportunity is not lost. As Israel continues to take risks for peace, she will have no friend more steadfast than the United States.

“In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel ‘as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.’

“The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever.”

source: http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=999 17nov2006

all i did was google nancy pelosi and aipac- there are pages of this


Published on Friday, May 27, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Nancy Pelosi Gives a Pep Talk to AIPAC
The Democratic leader in her own words
by Mark Gaffney

Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s recent speech to the Israeli-American lobby (AIPAC) ought to be a clarion call for peace activists. Her address did not contain any big surprises. But it is, nonetheless, remarkable for its transparency. The speech (see below for the text) affords a up-close look at what Pelosi thinks about Israel, the Palestinians, the Mideast, and nukes.

It’s worth a look too because Pelosi’s beliefs on these matters are not a departure. Most of the Democratic Party leadership espouse similar ideas. The bipartisan voting record of Congress in recent years on Mideast issues proves this to be the case. Remember, this is the party that’s supposed to represent the grassroots, i.e., we the people. So what is the Democratic leader of the House doing, anyway, giving a pep talk to the second largest lobby in Washington? Indeed, to the lobby of a foreign power? It’s a question more Americans ought to be asking.

Most of the speech is the same old stuff. I draw your attention only to several points:

Pelosi denies that the key issue is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza --- at a stroke repudiating numerous UN Security Council Resolutions that the US voted for and supposedly still supports. But clearly, that’s no longer the case, and hasn’t been for many years.

The real issue, she states, is the survival of Israel. This is the familiar mantra by which anything and everything becomes possible. Only, there's a minor catch: The statement isn’t true and hasn’t been since probably 1949.

If nothing else, Pelosi is well-versed. She recites another familiar line, the one about how there was no partner for peace until Arafat expired, when light suddenly came flooding in. Pelosi makes it clear that in her view the Palestinian leader Abbas’ real job is to serve as policeman for Israel. Evidently, his legitimacy largely depends on this. Looking after the best interests of his own people comes in a distant second.

But her most revealing statements concern nuclear proliferation, and they show why the Democrats (who don’t get it) are no improvement over the Republicans (who always get it wrong). In fact, the Democrats may be even more dangerous, precisely because there is still the perception in the land, however mistaken, that the Democrats are the party of enlightened ideas. I would be willing to bet that most registered democrats are not aware of how extreme their elected Democratic representatives are on these key issues. Nor can most thus have a true sense of how dire the situation is.

According to Pelosi, the biggest danger to Israel today comes from Iran, whose nuclear ambitions, though still unproved, also threaten the US. Her perspective contains the seed of ominous things to come, because, after all, something will have to be done about Iran, right? Yes, and soon.

Meanwhile, Pelosi manages to overlook Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians, which undoubtedly is the greatest danger to Israel, by far, and comes from within. Nor does she mention Israel’s massive nuclear, chemical and biological weapons arsenal. But her statements additionally contain the tacit and troublesome assumption that the only people in the region who matter are Israelis and Americans. Everyone else, virtually the entire population of numerous countries, though no less imperiled by nuclear weapons (arguably even more so), simply don’t count in this calculus. In fact, Pelosi’s remarks are implicitly racist for this reason.

The shocker, though, also near the end, is where Pelosi takes the US and Israeli nuclear monopoly in the region for granted, as if this were a good and necessary thing. The purpose of the NPT in her view is to shut down the rogue proliferators, who by definition are always those other guys, never us. It’s the stuff of which nuclear nightmares are made. I would also bet that the vast majority of people who live in the Mideast take sharp issue with Pelosi’s thinking, and probably have a bone to pick with her about where the actual threat lies.

George Washington, our founding father, who warned against entangling alliances, must be turning over, about now. But don’t take my word for it. Read Pelosi’s speech (which follows) and draw your own conclusions.

Mark Gaffney is the author of Dimona: the Third Temple?, a pioneering 1989 book about Mordechai Vanunu and the Israeli nuke program. Mark’s latest book is Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes. Mark can be reached for comment at mhgaffney@sbcglobal.net

this is todays news- also where did i get these stories?
right on yahoo email-
an excerpt-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In
Israel, Pelosi said she would tell Syrian leaders that Israel will talk peace with them only if Syria stops supporting Palestinian militants. She has said she will also talk to the Syrians about Iraq, their role in neighboring Lebanon and their support for Lebanon's Hezbollah militants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nancy Pelosi: The AIPAC Girl

Patrick J. Buchanan
V dare
Wednesday, March 21, 2007

If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war.

For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.

Pelosi's capitulation came in the Appropriations Committee.

What went down, and why?

"Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy," wrote The Associated Press' David Espo and Matthew Lead.

"Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in an interview there is a widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which ... has expressed unremitting hostility to the Jewish state.

"'It would take away perhaps the most important tool the U.S. has when it comes to Iran,' she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"'I don't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize in a civilized way,' said Gary Ackerman of New York." [ Dems abandon war authority provision, March 12, 2007]

According to John Nichols of The Nation, Pelosi's decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress' approval "sends the worst possible signal to the White House."

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come."

Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority.

Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress.

They have been flashed the go sign for war on Iran.

Pelosi & Co. thus aborted a bipartisan effort to ensure that if we do go to war again, we do it the constitutional way, and we do it together.

Nothing in the provision would have prevented Bush, as commander in chief, from responding to an Iranian attack or engaging in hot pursuit of an enemy found in Iraq. Nor would the provision have prevented Bush from threatening Iran. It would simply have required him to come to Congress—before launching all-out war.

Now Pelosi has, in effect, ceded Bush carte blanche to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. It's all up to him and Cheney.

For this the nation elected a Democratic Congress?

Why did Pelosi capitulate? Answer: She was "under pressure from some conservative members of her caucus, and from lobbyists associated with neoconservative groups that want war with Iran and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)," writes Nichols.

The Washington Times agrees as to who bully-ragged Nancy into scuttling any requirement that Bush come to the Hill before unleashing the B-2s on Arak, Natanz and Bushehr:

"Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a smattering of boos when she bad-mouthed the war effort during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Democratic leadership, responding to concerns from pro-Israel lawmakers, was forced to strip from a military appropriations measure a provision meant to weaken President Bush's ability to respond to threats from Iran."[Foreign policy adrift? March 19, 2007]

This episode, wherein liberal Democrats scuttled a bipartisan effort to require Bush to abide by the Constitution before taking us into a third war in the Middle East, speaks volumes about who has the whip hand on Capitol Hill, when it comes to the Middle East.

Pelosi gets booed by the Israeli lobby, then runs back to the Hill and gives Bush a blank check for war on Iran, because that is what the lobby demands. A real candidate for Profiles in Courage.

As for the presidential candidates, it is hard to find a single one willing to stand up and say: If Bush plans to take us into another war in the Mideast, he must first come to Congress for authorization. And if he goes to war without authorization, that will be impeachable.

All retreat into the "all-options-are-on-the-table" mantra, which is another way of saying, "It's Bush's call."

The corruption of both parties is astonishing. Republicans used to be the party of the Constitution: "No more undeclared wars! No more presidential wars!"

Democrats used to be the party of the people. The people don't want this war. They don't want another. The Jewish community voted 88 percent for Democrats in November, and 77 percent oppose Iraq.

So says Gallup. Yet, just because the Israeli lobby jerked her chain, the leader of the Peoples' House has decided she and her party will leave the next war up to Bush.

Sam Rayburn must be turning over in his grave.
``````````````````````````````````````````````````

I KNOW, I WATCHED THESE PROCEEDINGS LAST WEEK ON CSPAN

dave said-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Nancy Pelosi is a very tough individual with good sense. She and the Democratic Party do not follow AIPAC as if it is a ruling clique.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ineresting dave- then how do we account fr this?

JERUSALEM - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) will tell Syrian leaders when she visits Damascus this week on a trip criticized by the Bush administration that
Israel will only engage in peace talks if
Syria stops supporting Palestinian militants, Israel said Sunday.
ADVERTISEMENT

The message came during Pelosi's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during the Israel part of her Mideast tour.

"Pelosi is conveying that Israel is willing to talk if they (Syria) would openly take steps to stop supporting terrorism," Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

Israel and Syria are sworn enemies, though peace talks came close to success in 2000 before breaking down. Israel charges that Syria-based Palestinian militants are directing violence against it from the
West Bank and Gaza.

Washington also considers Syria a sponsor of terror and had asked Pelosi not to visit Damascus.

Pelosi said Sunday she will raise the issue of two Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah and a third captured by Palestinian militants last year with Syrian President Bashar Assad when she meets with him. The delegation met with the families of the three soldiers during the visit to Israel.

On Sunday night, Pelosi spoke at a dinner in the parliament building, and told Israeli lawmakers that the U.S. remains strongly behind their country.

"Americans have many political differences, but we stand united with Israel now and always," she said.

The meeting took an hour, twice as long as planned, and delayed Israel's Cabinet meeting, Eisin said. Olmert and the delegation talked "extensively" about a Saudi peace plan, dormant since 2002 and relaunched last week at an Arab League summit.

Olmert has welcomed the plan, which calls for a recognition by all Arab states of Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from territories captured in 1967 as a "revolutionary change." But he has expressed reservations, as well.

Pelosi told Olmert there is strong bipartisan support in the United States for demands that the Hamas-led Palestinian government moderate its stance toward Israel before international sanctions against it are lifted, Eisin said.

She reiterated that point in her speech to the parliament, saying she is "concerned that the new Palestinian government, some of the people in the government, continue to remain committed to the destruction of Israel." However, a majority of Palestinians and Israelis support a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
she said.

Pelosi's visit to Israel is her second trip to the Middle East since she took over leadership of the House in January. Other representatives traveling with Pelosi and Ellison include Democrats Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record) and Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record) of California, Louise Slaughter of New York and Nick Rahall (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, and Ohio Republican David Hobson (news, bio, voting record).

independent huh?

trotting over to syria to deliver the israeli message?

yes dave- youre right, pelosi has been independent, but even she cannot withstand the pressure of aipacs influence on congress to go against israel in any thing- instead she is the messenger girl for israel

thats all youve got?

saying it doesnt exist?

not much of a rebuttal dave

"A group I call the AIPAC Caucus, which routinely does the bidding of AIPAC even if unasked, lobbied Nancy Pelosi hard to remove language from the Iraq military appropriations bill which would've compelled Bush to come to Congress for authorization before using force against Iran."

That is mysticism. We now have a fictional AIPAC Caucus. And they do AIPAC's will unasked as if they have a mental channel to AIPAC and do its will. AIPAC is a collection of individuals who sponsor dinners and other events. They do not control the world. Nor do all Jews do what they want.

Nancy Pelosi is a very tough individual with good sense. She and the Democratic Party do not follow AIPAC as if it is a ruling clique.

Why can't we get rid of the mysticism and slogans so we can talk sensibly about what actually is.

that was me- its called verifying with substantiation - providing resources
there are pages and pages and pages of this-

aipac influence on american policy?
yes it exists dave and they exert enormous power

this is just a small start

aipac pushing america into war with iran?

there seems to be no question of it
any comments?

nday, March 19, 2007
AIPAC Democrats
Inside America's powerful Israel lobby

Before and after the dinner, the presidential candidates and their colleagues from Congress schmoozed with the AIPAC delegates. Circulating through the crowd, Joe Biden made sure his presence was registered. "Hi, I'm Joe Biden!" he said repeatedly, adding several times, "I've been hanging out with AIPAC for years!"

Following the dinner, Clinton and Obama held competing dessert receptions in the conference center -- in rooms about 25 yards apart -- both eager to highlight their pro-Israel credentials.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Correspondent

WASHINGTON - United States Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat from Illinois who is competing for his party's presidential nomination, told Haaretz on Thursday that the United States should help protect Israel from its "dangerous" enemies.

"My view is that the United States' special relationship with Israel obligates us to be helpful to them in the search for credible partners with whom they can make peace, while also supporting Israel in defending itself against enemies sworn to its destruction," he said.

"Israelis want more than anything to live in peace with their neighbors, but Israel also has real - and very dangerous - enemies," Obama said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two of the leading Democratic candidates for president will compete head-to-head tonight for money and support from the same pro-Israel group.

Senator Clinton and John Edwards are scheduled to appear at a dinner for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
on israel, america and aipac george soros

One explanation is to be found in the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which strongly affects both the Democratic and the Republican parties.[2] AIPAC's mission is to ensure American support for Israel but in recent years it has overreached itself. It became closely allied with the neocons and was an enthusiastic supporter of the invasion of Iraq. It actively lobbied for the confirmation of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. It continues to oppose any dialogue with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas. More recently, it was among the pressure groups that prevailed upon the Democratic House leadership to drop the requirement that the President obtain congressional approval before taking military action against Iran. AIPAC under its current leadership has clearly exceeded its mission, and far from guaranteeing Israel's existence, has endangered it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ynet (Israel) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/ 0,7340,L-3355786,00.html Israeli billionaire and media mogul Haim Saban is at the top of the list of donors to political campaigns in the US. Fox Network revealed over the weekend that Saban has donated approximately US $13 million to various candidates. According to the report, Saban, a close friend of the Clintons, is one of the major donors to the Democratic Party, though he has also contributed to Republican candidates, including President George Bush and Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
an excerpt from the posted link-

With respect to the positions of several administrations on the question of Israel, there are two things that bring them into line: One is pressure from members of Congress who bring that pressure resulting in the demands of AIPAC, and the other is the desire on the part of the President and his advisers to keep their respective political parties from crumbling under that pressure. I do not recall a single instance where any administration saw the need for Israel's military power to advance U.S. imperial interests. In fact, as we saw in the Gulf War, Israel's involvement was detrimental to what Bush, Sr. wanted to accomplish in that war. They had, as you might remember, to suppress any Israeli assistance so that the coalition would not be destroyed by their involvement.

So far as the argument that we need to use Israel as a base for U.S. operations, I'm not aware of any U.S. bases there of any kind. The U.S. has enough military bases, and fleets, in the area to be able to handle any kind of military needs without using Israel. In fact I can't think of an instance where the U.S. would want to involve Israel militarally for fear of upsetting the current allies the U.S. has, i.e., Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The public in those countries would not allow the monarchies to continue their alliance with the U.S. should Israel become involved.

the link-
a us senator speaks
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-abourezk.html

Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place
AIPAC Democrats Give Bush Free Hand to Attack Iran

March 17, 2007 at 10:39 pm · Filed under Mideast Peace, Politics & Society

This is a real head-scratcher. After the wringer the Bush Administration has put America through in our Iraq debacle–all the lies, the end-arounds, the waste of treasure and human lives–you'd think Congressional Democrats would've learned a lesson. You'd think Congress would be falling all over themselves to prevent another misadventure in Iran. Not so. A group I call the AIPAC Caucus, which routinely does the bidding of AIPAC even if unasked, lobbied Nancy Pelosi hard to remove language from the Iraq military appropriations bill which would've compelled Bush to come to Congress for authorization before using force against Iran. I always mistakenly thought one of Congress' roles was to act as a check on the executive branch when it overstepped its prerogatives. Preventing an Iran military debacle would seem to be a perfect example of the wise use of Congressional power to check Bush.

Reps. Gary Ackerman, Susan Berkley and Eliot Engel didn't think so according to the neocon publication, the New York Sun:

Two Democratic congressmen…intervened with…Nancy Pelosi to preserve President Bush's authority to use military force in the gathering showdown with Iran.

The Democratic leadership had introduced language in a $100 billion bill to fund military operations in Iraq. The language would have required Mr. Bush to seek congressional approval before expanding military operations to Iran.

But in the past week, Ms. Pelosi removed the clause after a group of conservative and pro-Israel Democrats threatened to vote against the appropriations package if it included the provision tying the president's hands.

One of those members, Rep. Eliot Engel, a Democrat from New York, said yesterday he counted between 20 and 27 members who would have voted against the funding measure if it included the Iran language. Rep. Gary Ackerman, another Democrat of New York, said he thinks the dissenters had even more votes.

These statements by Engel and Ackerman represent precisely the type of muddled thinking which tied Democrats up in knots in 2003 when they largely acquiesced to Bush in the vote to approve military action against Saddam:

While I do not support any military action against Iran, I do believe everything needs to be on the table in order for them to calculate that they have to modify their behavior."

…Mr. Ackerman said he made a political and policy argument in favor of withdrawing the Iran language. "Most people think it would be a bad idea to attack Iran. Those of us who have thought it out, also think it is a bad idea to take it off the table," he said.

We know how this president operates. If you show weakness and refuse to stand head to head with him when he rattles sabers, he will assuredly take you for everything you're worth if he needs to. If Bush has any serious thought in his mind of attacking Iran (and you know that he does), this will be considered a green light by him. And after the smoke clears over Iran's nuclear facilities and Engel and his colleagues start scratching their heads and wondering what just happened, Tony Snow will be telling Fox News that this vote encouraged the president to stand tall against Iran. Then who will you have to blame Messrs Engel and Ackerman??

Did AIPAC specifically lobby for this? They didn't have to. AIPAC talking points are inscribed inside the brains of the AIPAC Caucus. They know what AIPAC would want without even having to be told:

When asked Aipac's role, Mr. Engel said, "When I objected no one from Aipac had spoken to me." Mr. Ackerman yesterday said, "The leadership of Aipac thought the U.S. position would be better served without the Iran language. I don't know they were lobbying anyone on this though."

The sole ray of hope is Sen. Jim Webb's Senate bill which requires legislative approval for military action:

Senator Webb…said he has won backing for his measure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and would likely seek to attach his legislation as an amendment to a spending bill now moving through Congress to fund the Iraq war."

Let your senators know that you support the Webb amendment. Don't let the AIPAC Caucus lead us any closer to war with Iran than we already are.

you cant get elected to the presidency in america if you dont have aipac support-http://www.aipac.org/2785_2859.asp

HAPPY PSSOVER TO MY FRIEND IN THE GREAT PACIFIC NORTHWEST-

(THATS YOU DAVE,HEE HEE)

"Can you identify any significant issue on which Israeli and American interests diverged and in which AIPAC used its considerable lobbying clout to promote the position that favored America's interests?"

This is worth looking at because it is typical.

The notion that a lobbying group must look for things contrary to its position is odd. The point of a lobbying group is to ably represent a large group of people with common interests.

The notion of Fifth Column is different. It works as additional soldiers for a country operating in another country the parent country wants to take over.

I see no similarity but you think they are obviously similar. And you have a test.

I do not know much about AIPAC. It is widely respected as an organization which keeps in close touch with Israel, the American Jewish Community and politicians from all parties. So people who care about Israel trust it and those who want to know what people who care for Israel think look to AIPAC for advice.

Compare that to the NRA. It keeps in touch with gun manufacturers and people who own guns. It provides useful advice. The power comes from the number of Americans who prize their ownership of guns.

In the case of AIPAC, the organization is Jewish. However that does not mean it depends only on Jews for influence. Its influence comes from the fact that it speaks for Americans who care about Israel, many of whom are Christians. So it is not an example of the vast power Jews have and it is not a Fifth Column acting against American interests.

Now the truly interesting issue is why folks who are sure AIPAC controls our foreign policy to our great detriment and is a Fifth Column have issues with being viewed as anti-semitic. It brings to mind such issues as why many people exaggerate the power of 15 million Jews, why they demonize Israel, and why they are sure there would be peace in the Middle East without Israel or with a Muslim controlled Israel.

Dave,

I note that in an earlier post you lamented the idea that people would think of AIPAC as a "Fifth Column" for Israel. My question is: Why shouldn't it be thought of that way?

[I don't have the time to read all of your posts, so I apologize in advance if you've already responded to this issue.]

Can you identify any significant issue on which Israeli and American interests diverged and in which AIPAC used its considerable lobbying clout to promote the position that favored America's interests?

If not, isn't AIPAC (despite the "America" part of its name) an organization set up within the US primarily to promote Israel's interests, not America's--in other words, a "Fifth Column"?

Thanks in advance if you have helpful information.

"i havent yet made a perjorative statement about you dave"

We use the word pejorative differently.

The problem when people use words differently is that quoting dictionaries seldom resolves the issue.

"that is why i posted all the remarks youve made to me- so that you would realize how unnecessary they are to respectful dialogue-"

Well, that goes to how to talk about what we each have written. The extracts don't show who I was referring to and what I was referring to. I pointed out that they were not all about you. Clearly you do not believe that. And you do tend to repeat what you said over and over. That is the problem with the marchers with placards. They say the same simple things over and over. All kinds of people do that.

You do not feel anyone could construe what you are posting as goading and pestering?

there are many places to talk about world peace- if you want to focus on one issue about israel- that is fine-

i havent yet made a perjorative statement about you dave- if you think i have copy it and prove it or clearly state you were mistaken- there can be no discussion under clouds of any apprehension-

that is why i posted all the remarks youve made to me- so that you would realize how unnecessary they are to respectful dialogue-

there is a pointed and specific statement
it requires a specific and on point answer

if i have made some statement that is rude or offensive i will certainly own up to it- as i have done so in the past when i felt i was impolite or unkind in any way- and without any direction from anyone- i try to catch myself-

so there you have it- i dont allow myself to be disrespected in real life so i cannot allow myself to be so in cyberspace as this is also real

"well, only one post wasnt specifically addressed to me dave-"

Which only shows I was responding to what you posted.

"youve taken alot of space explaining why you DONT have reasons- but still have a view unsupportd by reasons."

That moves down complexity into something simple, manageable, and completely wrong. So why do it? I simply do not view things as being as simple as you do.

Responses to how you look at me and talk about me are necessarily about you as are comments on the processes you follow. And of course many of your posts are about me not the quality of the air in Israel.

So why not explain why it is useful to view Israel as racist and genocidal from the point of view of advancing world peace? You do not have to talk about how the way I think about things differs from yours in a pejorative way.

well, only one post wasnt specifically addressed to me dave- and that was pointed out- the rest are addressed to me - if you believe they are all deserved criticisms or putdowns- go with it.

as i have asked for any specific comment from you addressing very focused and specific points-

vague is the exact definition-

if you formed your views in childhood then they are firmly entrenched-
it was never my intention to change your mind- only to find out what is IN your mind and i must admit- i still havent a real idea of why you support israel from any angle- as its never been explained-

youve taken alot of space explaining why you DONT have reasons- but still have a view unsupportd by reasons.

that to me is the definiton of vagueness-

and in substitute for substantive or logical discourse, now you simply post insults or misleading and false representations and that is too much for me-

the fact that you are justifying words of a questionable tone indicates that you feel it is okay to get personal - for the sake of this discussion - it is not.

i have been sensitive to never once portray you in a demeaning or caricature like manner-
so i do expect the same in return or at least acknowledgement that i t may be innappropriate or overstated.

at its core- it is unfair
peace

I see this kind of use of out of context remarks all of the time among those who make broad generalizations which they are sure any smart, decent person can see are true.

"here are 2 posts back to back- where did you get the idea i am a german?
no one mentioned nazis or compared them to jews- but you present it as being my view"

I was referring to the German bishops visit to Germany. Every post I write does not refer to you. Moreover much of what you post are quotes from other people and my responses are to them.

Clearly you can find sentences which can not be understood without their context. I am not writing a series of one liners.

""The "natives" would have a religion which conflicted with Judaism and really would be blacks."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
racism is ok now? what does that mena theyd be black? thats the 2nd time youve used that term- do you consider blacks sencond class?"

The Palestinians were referred to by one of your authors as natives like blacks. Indigenous people has the same meaning as native. The Roman province Palestine was named for the Philistines, a war-like people with an imperial tradition the Romans could relate to. Of course the Arabs are not Philistines. The Jews followed the Philistines. The Samaritans who were there from that time on were Jewish. And Arabs, who came after Mohammed, are not blacks. But that makes no difference to those who insist Israel is:

Racist

An apartheid state

Genocidal

Those are generalizations which falsely simplify extremely complex issues. Talking about them in true or false terms gets everyone nowhere.

"also i see that the page and pages and pages of research and posts addressed to you have never even been read by you-"

How can you know that?

"ive given you plenty of time to develop a reasoning process for your beliefs-"

I developed one when I was a kid that has served me well in many situations. And I have been continually refining it.

"if you dont have a clarified and cohesive one now you probably never will"

I will never please some people who have certitudes that can not be shaken.

"simply put- i cant make a synopsis of your views as they are so vague-"

Complex and nuanced is not the same as vague. Vague to me refers to an absence of specifics. Your problem is that I insist on looking at specifics rather than talk back and forth about high level generalizations which no one can resolve issues about.

im going to paste some of the responses youve given me dave- you look at it as a body and tell me the point-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
However it is a long way from that to viewing Jews as worse than Nazis.

Posted March 14, 2007 4:22 PM

Posted on March 14, 2007 16:22
Dave Marshak:

"One would think that anyone coming from Germany and possessing the slightest bit of sensitivity would not be so cavalier in tossing out comparisons of Jews with Nazis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

here are 2 posts back to back- where did you get the idea i am a german?
no one mentioned nazis or compared them to jews- but you present it as being my view

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
more mischaracterizations and usage of language that was never uttered by me
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Palestinian sources who are fighting the good fight against what they seem to think is evil so inhuman as to be Satanic.

The goverments of Israel and the United States, which if not guided by Satan are deemed to be wholly untrustworthy by the folks who read and write these books."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You have been asking me why we give aid to Israel. I have tried to explain that it is not a Vast Jewish Conspiracy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
no one said it was dave- more inflammatroy words you put in my mouth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(you quoting me-)

"but i grew up around the whole question authority mindset-"
(your response)
I fall short of oppositional disorder but I was raised in such a way that I blindly trust and follow no authority. It must make sense to me. It is simply not "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
accsuing me of oppostional disorder?
but when you follow no authorty it is valid?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That is the problem with the sloganeers, demonstrators with placards, and sellers of books which cater to those who despise Israel. All of that righteous energy going to waste through ignorance."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
who said i despise israel? o you do- and ignorant too-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Well. I don't get to talk to the marchers and stompers like this very often."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"At this point you are simply posting the stuff people put on placards and demonstrate about. So to you I am one more awful Zionist and you are relentlessly trying to shut me up?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Sure people can view Jews as some folks viewed Nazis then."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There is always something that can be blamed on some Jew and there is always mistaken history to rely on."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Surely you do not blame that on Jews or Israel?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(NO ONE MENTIONED ISRAEL I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE US)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you copied my statement -"can you criticize israel without being accused of anti-semitism?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes. And you can do so when you are anti-semitic. And people can make unfair statements about Jews because they absorb them like air and hang out where they are viewed as truth. And some will view that as anti-semitic just as some view Jews as genocidal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
" And Israel does many good things. They are not Nazi Germany.
What happened in the past is done. It is what we do now that matters. And treating AIPAC as if they are a Fifth Column for Israel and Israel as if it is Nazi Germany is wildly unhelpful on many different levels.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
my response to this-
"i didnt mention nazis dave- i didnt mention aipac, why do you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
it is apparent why now dave-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I have made a decision that the US and Israel are not Evil Empires ruled by the Dark Side of the Force.
You see funding as a moral issue. That goes with the Evil Empire notion. So I do not see it as a consuming moral issue."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
more bizarre mischaracterization

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You are simply saying the same things over and over again. That is what people like Carter and self named peace advocates, who are far from peaceful people, do."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
now im not peaceful for presing an unanswered point

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There is a lot of self delusion around. People with no sense of reason think they can teach it. People who hate, thinking they are all about love. People making absurdly general and vague statements thinking something useful will come from them."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in reference to if palestininas were allowed to retrun to israel-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The "natives" would have a religion which conflicted with Judaism and really would be blacks."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
racism is ok now? what does that mena theyd be black? thats the 2nd time youve used that term- do you consider blacks sencond class?

how you referred to the palestinian children killed-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"inevitable but undesired collateral damage."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
you said to me-in reference to my statement about the 141 children killed- undesired collateral damage

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That is like the use Jimmy Carter makes of the word apartheid. It is foxy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"How do you get along with Jews in LA, Chicago, and NYC?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
there was a sly innuendo that i can not get along with jewish people- when i responded at length my service to the jewish community- you reamined silent-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
your misleading analysis of the peace and justice movement-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is not a call for peace. It is a call to support a collection of "fighters for justice." And the people who issue that call are very sure God or Justice is on their side."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

no- is a call for pace- many many of the members have no religious affiliation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I gather you think that too is a Jewish plot."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That is the same Jews control the world stuff that Hitler was obsessed with. Yet you do not view it as anti-semitic."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
again no one mentioned hitler

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"saying into the standard script those who despise Israel use."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"why is it a Vast Jewish plot when we do less for Israel?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You are getting progressively more shrill"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"dave- you ctually have accused me of anti-semitism on other posts-"

That is what your script says. It is not what I have said. You keep repeating things from your script and pushing your script."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That is a new charge but it comes from the same script."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I think the teams you like to work with should spend some time improving their scripts. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Okay. At this point what we have is the semantic equivalent of you marching up and down a street with a placard saying "Stop Funding Israel! Stop AIPAC!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this was in response to pere, stil not sure why h posted an article
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That is simple ignorance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
""Israel is racist. (i pasted the UN statement to that effect)

Israel practices apartheid. (jimmy carter)

Israel is commiting genocide. (i dont kn where you got that one)

Israel is a colonial empire. (no one said colonial empire or empire- an article by the friar said israel fit as an imperial state- on examination it appears it does)

Israel is a terrorist state. again, where di that come from?

All US aid to Israel must stop." WHILE I DIDNT SAY ALL BY ANY MEANS- I HAVE QUESTIONED THE FUNDING AT LENGTH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

so, on going back and looking at the comments youve made to me- even you must see a pattern of criticism and personal observations that are not cricket in this discussion-

also- ive noticed continued cartoonlike mischracterizations that just are not honest

you introduce words and phrases that are inflammatory and ff point in an effort to paint me personally in some crazy light- never on topic or pertinent to the conversation

also i see that the page and pages and pages of research and posts addressed to you have never even been read by you-

this is not mutual respect-

keeping someone on the defensive by accusing them of something may distract for awhile- but it is not a valid counterpoint which is all i ever asked you for-

ive given you plenty of time to develop a reasoning process for your beliefs-

if you dont have a clarified and cohesive one now you probably never will

simply put- i cant make a synopsis of your views as they are so vague-

while it seems noble to say this is what we have and lets deal with it- the only way to deal with it is to redress past injustices and correct them-

Although eager to accept the UN Partition Plan of 1947 which recommended that 56% of the land be set aside for a Jewish State, 42% for an Arab state and 2% for an internationalised Jerusalem and its surrounds, the world has not said a word about the land that was seized by Zionist terrorists before the State of Israel was proclaimed on 14 May 1948. Through a series of shocking massacres, the territory assigned to the Jews suddenly became 77% resulting in more than 750,000 Palestinians being forcibly expelled and dispossessed of their homes, personal property and their homeland. The Jewish State then came into being without waiting for the United Nations Commission - prescribed in the Partition resolution - to hand authority progressively over to the Jewish and Arab leaders for their respective states.

so start at the beginning-

dave- i do not share your hopelessness about the discussion and examination of ideas in a public forum-

since youre offering no new ideas and only constant criticism- it ceases to be a debate and has slid into argumentive folly-

i see you take no care in your representation of your opposition and have no qualms about making false statements without support-

one thing you dont do is print a false representation or speak for the other-

you are deliberately giving the impression that i said things that i didnt-

put the souces of your list alongside as i do with all of mine-

but you wont so-

i dont think you want to discuss the issue as you have no counterpoint to my many points- only arbitrary criticism without base

GIBRAN you can talk about anything you want here

in case you havent noticed on these blogs people frequently introduce far left field topics out of nowhere-

paletine on the other hand is an extremely relevant subject

to much time has been spent talking about israel

From watching the posts. the original question of can one be critical of Israel and not labeled something if I generalized by Dave' perspective I would say no...But, I believe that I would be wrong. The true path for Israel and Peace is the recognition of what has been status qua is not working and since it has not worked instead of assigning blame maybe we should work for a fair peace. Now this thread did not speak of Palestine so my comment is limited to what the thread was originally focused on. Israel can be a great nation and any great nation should be open to have critical debate on it's policies, not its existence. Shalom

Too many people are falling over themselves winning cases in the court of public opinion. It just increases the anger level and stifles reasonable thinking, which is not about pushing vast generalizations.

The point of generalizations about Israel based on weird definitions is to show care and concern for the suffering of Palestinians. So they must be ratcheted up to seem anti-semitic to many in order to win the trust of Palestinians.

So we get such true or false statements as:

"Israel is racist.

Israel practices apartheid.

Israel is commiting genocide.

Israel is a colonial empire.

Israel is a terrorist state.

All US aid to Israel must stop."

There is no way to reason with that. You just kind of wait it out and hope someday folks will come along with sense.

in case you didnt know why youre here dave- i know why im here-

were making a case in the court of public opinion

i have not nor will not ever make any observations of a negative nature about yours or anyone esles intelligence dave-

you have alot of suspicion for the bad in my intentions that is not there-

you are seeing insults that dont exist nor can you produce-

i mistook your fervor in your tenacity for caring about the issue- and im thinking that was my mistake-

im thinking its not that you care so much about finding peace or anything like that- or youd propose one idea to that effect-

i think you just want to silence any voices that criticize israeli behavior towards the palestinians and its relationship with the united states.

unless you can offer some pastes or substantiation of what you believe (which as i understand it is that israel is a blessing to the world and any wrong its ever done has been more than justified, why? you wont say)

then it seems entirely pointless to respond-

youve had very opportunity to present some kind of case for israel- its funding - its formation- its practices-
as i have done with palestine-

but the fact is you have not

ok ave- now tie it all together

"while you continue to claim you were never aware any people made any connections between AIPAC (jewish lobby ) and americna policy"

I am amazed at how little of what I say makes sense to you and how poorly you understand what I say. I have noticed this with folks who are very sure they have the truth and everyone else should listen to them. They usually view those who do not agree with them as astonishingly dumb. I have pointed out that Carter says this about AIPAC and his views are applauded as truth by many people. Yet you did not hear that?

"since you dont have a resoning process that you can substantiate with anything other than colorful observations about me personally"

That is more of the same old, same old. And people who think like that seem amazed that many of us slight their genius and knowledge. That is why marching up and down for over forty years has gotten us world-wide violence and nuclear confrontations. People simply assume that those who "don't get it" are dumb, ignorant, evil, or all three. The notion that some of those who don't agree with them might actually care a lot, know more than they and their heroes do, and be smarter is sort of like heresy to them.

The Walt/Mearsheimer paper is infamous and has been discussed on this forum.

The paper is filled with amazing ways of viewing things. This is especially telling:

"Jewish Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies. Many of the key organisations in the Lobby, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party’s expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The bulk of US Jewry, meanwhile, is more inclined to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a few groups – such as Jewish Voice for Peace – strongly advocate such steps. Despite these differences, moderates and hardliners both favour giving steadfast support to Israel.

Not surprisingly, American Jewish leaders often consult Israeli officials, to make sure that their actions advance Israeli goals. As one activist from a major Jewish organisation wrote, ‘it is routine for us to say: “This is our policy on a certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think.” We as a community do it all the time.’"

That is a high level generalization by people who have a problem with much of what they call "US Jewry." That is a term I do not see that often.

"The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters."

That is correct. And those people are not part of "US Jewry." Yet the authors treat the Lobby in much of their talk about what it does as monolithic and Jewish. That can be seen above.

"It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of."

That is absurd. Many people treat it as a badge of honor and laugh about it.

"Are you aware that Israeli Zionists, during the 1948 war, pushed over 150,000 Palestinian refugees into the sea?"

Where did they go in their boats and what happened to them? Many people have fled their homes in boats in the 20th Century. That is better than being incinerated.

"anyone who was alive at the time and interested enough to pay attention and do the tiniest bit of research knows that the deal offered would be a death sentence for the palestinians -"

So the Clinton adminstration was stupid and evil? And the media covered up for them rather than do their jobs? And the Republicans did not try to impeach them for being stupid and evil when they brought charges against them? That is where your every president has been wrong about Israel position takes us.

"the only thing that matters iswhatever supports your emotional attachment to a land called israel that 150 years ago no jewish person in the wolrd ever even considered-"

That is simple ignorance.

The thing that intrigues me is that I know many bright, decent people will read these exchanges and be sure that what you say about what I have written is right. I do not see how we will ever get away from violent solutions as long as millions of bright, caring people think that way about complicated issues.

A. Jews have lived in what is now the land of Israel for at least 3,700 years. Britain and America had nothing to do with the creation of the Jewish State, being entities thousands of years younger.

In fact, the creation of the Israel was anti-imperialist as it removed that portion of the world from the British Empire against Britain's wishes.

People speak about Israel as if the Jews invaded and conquered the land. Utter nonsense. The Romans stole it from the Jews; Byzantium inherited it from Rome; the Arabs stole it from the Byzantines (with the help of Jews, who couldn'tstand the oppression of the Byzantines); the Turks stole it from the Arabs; finally, the British stole it from the Turks. Jews lived in the land the entire time. In fact Jews were the majority of the population of Jerusalem in the 1800s.

B. If Israel had never existed, there would be a bloodbath in 'Palestine.' Israel is the only thing that Palestinians agree on and the only thing that keeps them from slaughtering each other with wild abandon.

The violence throughout the Islamic world comes from the conflict of three emotionally charged and powerful ideas:

1. The nation state - as exemplified by the 'little' Arab Nations such as Oman, Tunisia, Lebanon, etc. The nation state is usually envisioned as being run by a single party or family led by a charismatic sheikh, amir (king), or president.

2. The pan-Arab Empire - as dreamt of in the writing of the founders of Ba'ath (fascism). The empire would run from the Atlantic (actually, Berber country) to the Zagros Mts. It might include Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Somalia, and Sudan, countries in which the Arabic language is prominent, but are ethnically and racially non-Arab. This was the dream of Abdel Nasser, Hafez Assad, and Saddam Hussein. The pan-Arab Empire is usually seen as being run by a single party lead by a charismatic sheikh, amir, or president.

3. The pan-Islamic Empire - as dreamt of in the writings of al Queda and other 'Islamicists.' The Empire would be bounded on the west by the Atlantic and would stretch to the southern Philippines in the East, Kazakhstan ahd Sinkiang in the north, and Nigeria and Tanzania in the south. The pan-Islamic is usually envisioned being led by a re-constituted Caliph (Theocrat)

Unless there is an agreemant about which of these three ideas should prevail there will be no peace, whether or not Israel exists.

D. The answers are Yes, Yes.

sorry to copy there dave- but ive been waitig almost a month and a half for you t make a point-

since you dont have a resoning process that you can substantiate with anything other than colorful observations about me personally- i got back on track on my own

while you continue to claim you were never aware any people made any connections between AIPAC (jewish lobby ) and americna policy

The Israel lobby debate

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.

Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.

This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.

Backing Israel was not cheap, however, and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. For example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that, Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force instead.

The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition, and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to help without triggering Arab opposition. So Israel stayed on the sidelines once again.

Beginning in the 1990s, and even more after 9/11, US support has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab and Muslim world, and by ‘rogue states’ that back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the US should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America’s enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.

‘Terrorism’ is not a single adversary, but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits.

As for so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests, except inasmuch as they are a threat to Israel. Even if these states acquire nuclear weapons – which is obviously undesirable – neither America nor Israel could be blackmailed, because the blackmailer could not carry out the threat without suffering overwhelming retaliation. The danger of a nuclear handover to terrorists is equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer would go undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished afterwards. The relationship with Israel actually makes it harder for the US to deal with these states. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is one reason some of its neighbours want nuclear weapons, and threatening them with regime change merely increases that desire.

A final reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it does not behave like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore US requests and renege on promises (including pledges to stop building settlements and to refrain from ‘targeted assassinations’ of Palestinian leaders). Israel has provided sensitive military technology to potential rivals like China, in what the State Department inspector-general called ‘a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorised transfers’. According to the General Accounting Office, Israel also ‘conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally’. In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat. Israel is hardly the only country that spies on the US, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron casts further doubt on its strategic value.

Israel’s strategic value isn’t the only issue. Its backers also argue that it deserves unqualified support because it is weak and surrounded by enemies; it is a democracy; the Jewish people have suffered from past crimes and therefore deserve special treatment; and Israel’s conduct has been morally superior to that of its adversaries. On close inspection, none of these arguments is persuasive. There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel’s existence, but that is not in jeopardy. Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.

Israel is often portrayed as David confronted by Goliath, but the converse is closer to the truth. Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better equipped and better led forces during the 1947-49 War of Independence, and the Israel Defence Forces won quick and easy victories against Egypt in 1956 and against Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967 – all of this before large-scale US aid began flowing. Today, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its conventional forces are far superior to those of its neighbours and it is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with it, and Saudi Arabia has offered to do so. Syria has lost its Soviet patron, Iraq has been devastated by three disastrous wars and Iran is hundreds of miles away. The Palestinians barely have an effective police force, let alone an army that could pose a threat to Israel. According to a 2005 assessment by Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, ‘the strategic balance decidedly favours Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbours.’ If backing the underdog were a compelling motive, the United States would be supporting Israel’s opponents.

That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships cannot account for the current level of aid: there are many democracies around the world, but none receives the same lavish support. The US has overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when this was thought to advance its interests – it has good relations with a number of dictatorships today.

Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.

A third justification is the history of Jewish suffering in the Christian West, especially during the Holocaust. Because Jews were persecuted for centuries and could feel safe only in a Jewish homeland, many people now believe that Israel deserves special treatment from the United States. The country’s creation was undoubtedly an appropriate response to the long record of crimes against Jews, but it also brought about fresh crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians.

This was well understood by Israel’s early leaders. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress:

If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?

Since then, Israeli leaders have repeatedly sought to deny the Palestinians’ national ambitions. When she was prime minister, Golda Meir famously remarked that ‘there is no such thing as a Palestinian.’ Pressure from extremist violence and Palestinian population growth has forced subsequent Israeli leaders to disengage from the Gaza Strip and consider other territorial compromises, but not even Yitzhak Rabin was willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state. Ehud Barak’s purportedly generous offer at Camp David would have given them only a disarmed set of Bantustans under de facto Israeli control. The tragic history of the Jewish people does not obligate the US to help Israel today no matter what it does.

Israel’s backers also portray it as a country that has sought peace at every turn and shown great restraint even when provoked. The Arabs, by contrast, are said to have acted with great wickedness. Yet on the ground, Israel’s record is not distinguishable from that of its opponents. Ben-Gurion acknowledged that the early Zionists were far from benevolent towards the Palestinian Arabs, who resisted their encroachments – which is hardly surprising, given that the Zionists were trying to create their own state on Arab land. In the same way, the creation of Israel in 1947-48 involved acts of ethnic cleansing, including executions, massacres and rapes by Jews, and Israel’s subsequent conduct has often been brutal, belying any claim to moral superiority. Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2700 and 5000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed. The IDF murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war in both the 1956 and 1967 wars, while in 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.

During the first intifada, the IDF distributed truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. The Swedish branch of Save the Children estimated that ‘23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada.’ Nearly a third of them were aged ten or under. The response to the second intifada has been even more violent, leading Ha’aretz to declare that ‘the IDF . . . is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.’ The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Since then, for every Israeli lost, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7:1). It is also worth bearing in mind that the Zionists relied on terrorist bombs to drive the British from Palestine, and that Yitzhak Shamir, once a terrorist and later prime minister, declared that ‘neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.’

The Palestinian resort to terrorism is wrong but it isn’t surprising. The Palestinians believe they have no other way to force Israeli concessions. As Ehud Barak once admitted, had he been born a Palestinian, he ‘would have joined a terrorist organisation’.

So if neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America’s support for Israel, how are we to explain it?

The explanation is the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby. We use ‘the Lobby’ as shorthand for the loose coalition of individuals and organisations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. This is not meant to suggest that ‘the Lobby’ is a unified movement with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree on certain issues. Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them. In a 2004 survey, for example, roughly 36 per cent of American Jews said they were either ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ emotionally attached to Israel.

Jewish Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies. Many of the key organisations in the Lobby, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party’s expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The bulk of US Jewry, meanwhile, is more inclined to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a few groups – such as Jewish Voice for Peace – strongly advocate such steps. Despite these differences, moderates and hardliners both favour giving steadfast support to Israel.

Not surprisingly, American Jewish leaders often consult Israeli officials, to make sure that their actions advance Israeli goals. As one activist from a major Jewish organisation wrote, ‘it is routine for us to say: “This is our policy on a certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think.” We as a community do it all the time.’ There is a strong prejudice against criticising Israeli policy, and putting pressure on Israel is considered out of order. Edgar Bronfman Sr, the president of the World Jewish Congress, was accused of ‘perfidy’ when he wrote a letter to President Bush in mid-2003 urging him to persuade Israel to curb construction of its controversial ‘security fence’. His critics said that ‘it would be obscene at any time for the president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby the president of the United States to resist policies being promoted by the government of Israel.’

Similarly, when the president of the Israel Policy Forum, Seymour Reich, advised Condoleezza Rice in November 2005 to ask Israel to reopen a critical border crossing in the Gaza Strip, his action was denounced as ‘irresponsible’: ‘There is,’ his critics said, ‘absolutely no room in the Jewish mainstream for actively canvassing against the security-related policies . . . of Israel.’ Recoiling from these attacks, Reich announced that ‘the word “pressure” is not in my vocabulary when it comes to Israel.’

Jewish Americans have set up an impressive array of organisations to influence American foreign policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful and best known. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked members of Congress and their staffs to list the most powerful lobbies in Washington. AIPAC was ranked second behind the American Association of Retired People, but ahead of the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association. A National Journal study in March 2005 reached a similar conclusion, placing AIPAC in second place (tied with AARP) in the Washington ‘muscle rankings’.

The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters.

The US form of government offers activists many ways of influencing the policy process. Interest groups can lobby elected representatives and members of the executive branch, make campaign contributions, vote in elections, try to mould public opinion etc. They enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence when they are committed to an issue to which the bulk of the population is indifferent. Policymakers will tend to accommodate those who care about the issue, even if their numbers are small, confident that the rest of the population will not penalise them for doing so.

In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers’ unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy: the Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby’s task even easier.

The Lobby pursues two broad strategies. First, it wields its significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual lawmaker or policymaker’s own views may be, the Lobby tries to make supporting Israel the ‘smart’ choice. Second, it strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates. The goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support, because a candid discussion of US-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favour a different policy.

A key pillar of the Lobby’s effectiveness is its influence in Congress, where Israel is virtually immune from criticism. This in itself is remarkable, because Congress rarely shies away from contentious issues. Where Israel is concerned, however, potential critics fall silent. One reason is that some key members are Christian Zionists like Dick Armey, who said in September 2002: ‘My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel.’ One might think that the No. 1 priority for any congressman would be to protect America. There are also Jewish senators and congressmen who work to ensure that US foreign policy supports Israel’s interests.

Another source of the Lobby’s power is its use of pro-Israel congressional staffers. As Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, once admitted, ‘there are a lot of guys at the working level up here’ – on Capitol Hill – ‘who happen to be Jewish, who are willing . . . to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness . . . These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators . . . You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level.’

AIPAC itself, however, forms the core of the Lobby’s influence in Congress. Its success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. Money is critical to US elections (as the scandal over the lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s shady dealings reminds us), and AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the many pro-Israel political action committees. Anyone who is seen as hostile to Israel can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to his or her political opponents. AIPAC also organises letter-writing campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel candidates.

There is no doubt about the efficacy of these tactics. Here is one example: in the 1984 elections, AIPAC helped defeat Senator Charles Percy from Illinois, who, according to a prominent Lobby figure, had ‘displayed insensitivity and even hostility to our concerns’. Thomas Dine, the head of AIPAC at the time, explained what happened: ‘All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians – those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire – got the message.’

AIPAC’s influence on Capitol Hill goes even further. According to Douglas Bloomfield, a former AIPAC staff member, ‘it is common for members of Congress and their staffs to turn to AIPAC first when they need information, before calling the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, committee staff or administration experts.’ More important, he notes that AIPAC is ‘often called on to draft speeches, work on legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors and marshal votes’.

The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel. As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, noted on leaving office, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, ‘when people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: “Help AIPAC.”’

Thanks in part to the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections, the Lobby also has significant leverage over the executive branch. Although they make up fewer than 3 per cent of the population, they make large campaign donations to candidates from both parties. The Washington Post once estimated that Democratic presidential candidates ‘depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 per cent of the money’. And because Jewish voters have high turn-out rates and are concentrated in key states like California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, presidential candidates go to great lengths not to antagonise them.

Key organisations in the Lobby make it their business to ensure that critics of Israel do not get important foreign policy jobs. Jimmy Carter wanted to make George Ball his first secretary of state, but knew that Ball was seen as critical of Israel and that the Lobby would oppose the appointment. In this way any aspiring policymaker is encouraged to become an overt supporter of Israel, which is why public critics of Israeli policy have become an endangered species in the foreign policy establishment.

When Howard Dean called for the United States to take a more ‘even-handed role’ in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Senator Joseph Lieberman accused him of selling Israel down the river and said his statement was ‘irresponsible’. Virtually all the top Democrats in the House signed a letter criticising Dean’s remarks, and the Chicago Jewish Star reported that ‘anonymous attackers . . . are clogging the email inboxes of Jewish leaders around the country, warning – without much evidence – that Dean would somehow be bad for Israel.’

This worry was absurd; Dean is in fact quite hawkish on Israel: his campaign co-chair was a former AIPAC president, and Dean said his own views on the Middle East more closely reflected those of AIPAC than those of the more moderate Americans for Peace Now. He had merely suggested that to ‘bring the sides together’, Washington should act as an honest broker. This is hardly a radical idea, but the Lobby doesn’t tolerate even-handedness.

During the Clinton administration, Middle Eastern policy was largely shaped by officials with close ties to Israel or to prominent pro-Israel organisations; among them, Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of research at AIPAC and co-founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Dennis Ross, who joined WINEP after leaving government in 2001; and Aaron Miller, who has lived in Israel and often visits the country. These men were among Clinton’s closest advisers at the Camp David summit in July 2000. Although all three supported the Oslo peace process and favoured the creation of a Palestinian state, they did so only within the limits of what would be acceptable to Israel. The American delegation took its cues from Ehud Barak, co-ordinated its negotiating positions with Israel in advance, and did not offer independent proposals. Not surprisingly, Palestinian negotiators complained that they were ‘negotiating with two Israeli teams – one displaying an Israeli flag, and one an American flag’.

The situation is even more pronounced in the Bush administration, whose ranks have included such fervent advocates of the Israeli cause as Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, I. Lewis (‘Scooter’) Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser. As we shall see, these officials have consistently pushed for policies favoured by Israel and backed by organisations in the Lobby.

The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide. Accordingly, pro-Israel organisations work hard to influence the institutions that do most to shape popular opinion.

The Lobby’s perspective prevails in the mainstream media: the debate among Middle East pundits, the journalist Eric Alterman writes, is ‘dominated by people who cannot imagine criticising Israel’. He lists 61 ‘columnists and commentators who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without qualification’. Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently criticise Israeli actions or endorse Arab positions. Newspapers occasionally publish guest op-eds challenging Israeli policy, but the balance of opinion clearly favours the other side. It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one.

‘Shamir, Sharon, Bibi – whatever those guys want is pretty much fine by me,’ Robert Bartley once remarked. Not surprisingly, his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, along with other prominent papers like the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Times, regularly runs editorials that strongly support Israel. Magazines like Commentary, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard defend Israel at every turn.

Editorial bias is also found in papers like the New York Times, which occasionally criticises Israeli policies and sometimes concedes that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances, but is not even-handed. In his memoirs the paper’s former executive editor Max Frankel acknowledges the impact his own attitude had on his editorial decisions: ‘I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert . . . Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognised, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.’

News reports are more even-handed, in part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because it is difficult to cover events in the Occupied Territories without acknowledging Israel’s actions on the ground. To discourage unfavourable reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel. One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages in a single day complaining about a story. In May 2003, the pro-Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic to Israel. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further pressure on NPR has come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as well as more oversight.

The Israeli side also dominates the think tanks which play an important role in shaping public debate as well as actual policy. The Lobby created its own think tank in 1985, when Martin Indyk helped to found WINEP. Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel, claiming instead to provide a ‘balanced and realistic’ perspective on Middle East issues, it is funded and run by individuals deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda.

The Lobby’s influence extends well beyond WINEP, however. Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks employ few, if any, critics of US support for Israel.

Take the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William Quandt, a former NSC official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness. Today, Brookings’s coverage is conducted through the Saban Center for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre’s director is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus.

Where the Lobby has had the most difficulty is in stifling debate on university campuses. In the 1990s, when the Oslo peace process was underway, there was only mild criticism of Israel, but it grew stronger with Oslo’s collapse and Sharon’s access to power, becoming quite vociferous when the IDF reoccupied the West Bank in spring 2002 and employed massive force to subdue the second intifada.

The Lobby moved immediately to ‘take back the campuses’. New groups sprang up, like the Caravan for Democracy, which brought Israeli speakers to US colleges. Established groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Hillel joined in, and a new group, the Israel on Campus Coalition, was formed to co-ordinate the many bodies that now sought to put Israel’s case. Finally, AIPAC more than tripled its spending on programmes to monitor university activities and to train young advocates, in order to ‘vastly expand the number of students involved on campus . . . in the national pro-Israel effort’.

The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. In September 2002, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report remarks or behaviour that might be considered hostile to Israel. This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars provoked a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to report ‘anti-Israel’ activity.

Groups within the Lobby put pressure on particular academics and universities. Columbia has been a frequent target, no doubt because of the presence of the late Edward Said on its faculty. ‘One can be sure that any public statement in support of the Palestinian people by the pre-eminent literary critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of emails, letters and journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him,’ Jonathan Cole, its former provost, reported. When Columbia recruited the historian Rashid Khalidi from Chicago, the same thing happened. It was a problem Princeton also faced a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi away from Columbia.

A classic illustration of the effort to police academia occurred towards the end of 2004, when the David Project produced a film alleging that faculty members of Columbia’s Middle East Studies programme were anti-semitic and were intimidating Jewish students who stood up for Israel. Columbia was hauled over the coals, but a faculty committee which was assigned to investigate the charges found no evidence of anti-semitism and the only incident possibly worth noting was that one professor had ‘responded heatedly’ to a student’s question. The committee also discovered that the academics in question had themselves been the target of an overt campaign of intimidation.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is the efforts Jewish groups have made to push Congress into establishing mechanisms to monitor what professors say. If they manage to get this passed, universities judged to have an anti-Israel bias would be denied federal funding. Their efforts have not yet succeeded, but they are an indication of the importance placed on controlling debate.

A number of Jewish philanthropists have recently established Israel Studies programmes (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programmes already in existence) so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on campus. In May 2003, NYU announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies; similar programmes have been set up at Berkeley, Brandeis and Emory. Academic administrators emphasise their pedagogical value, but the truth is that they are intended in large part to promote Israel’s image. Fred Laffer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes it clear that his foundation funded the NYU centre to help counter the ‘Arabic [sic] point of view’ that he thinks is prevalent in NYU’s Middle East programmes.

No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.

Europeans have been more willing than Americans to criticise Israeli policy, which some people attribute to a resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe. We are ‘getting to a point’, the US ambassador to the EU said in early 2004, ‘where it is as bad as it was in the 1930s’. Measuring anti-semitism is a complicated matter, but the weight of evidence points in the opposite direction. In the spring of 2004, when accusations of European anti-semitism filled the air in America, separate surveys of European public opinion conducted by the US-based Anti-Defamation League and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that it was in fact declining. In the 1930s, by contrast, anti-semitism was not only widespread among Europeans of all classes but considered quite acceptable.

The Lobby and its friends often portray France as the most anti-semitic country in Europe. But in 2003, the head of the French Jewish community said that ‘France is not more anti-semitic than America.’ According to a recent article in Ha’aretz, the French police have reported that anti-semitic incidents declined by almost 50 per cent in 2005; and this even though France has the largest Muslim population of any European country. Finally, when a French Jew was murdered in Paris last month by a Muslim gang, tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets to condemn anti-semitism. Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin both attended the victim’s memorial service to show their solidarity.

No one would deny that there is anti-semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s conduct towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist. But this is a separate matter with little bearing on whether or not Europe today is like Europe in the 1930s. Nor would anyone deny that there are still some virulent autochthonous anti-semites in Europe (as there are in the United States) but their numbers are small and their views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans.

Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.

Critics are also accused of holding Israel to an unfair standard or questioning its right to exist. But these are bogus charges too. Western critics of Israel hardly ever question its right to exist: they question its behaviour towards the Palestinians, as do Israelis themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly. Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because it is contrary to widely accepted notions of human rights, to international law and to the principle of national self-determination. And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism on these grounds.

In the autumn of 2001, and especially in the spring of 2002, the Bush administration tried to reduce anti-American sentiment in the Arab world and undermine support for terrorist groups like al-Qaida by halting Israel’s expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state. Bush had very significant means of persuasion at his disposal. He could have threatened to reduce economic and diplomatic support for Israel, and the American people would almost certainly have supported him. A May 2003 poll reported that more than 60 per cent of Americans were willing to withhold aid if Israel resisted US pressure to settle the conflict, and that number rose to 70 per cent among the ‘politically active’. Indeed, 73 per cent said that the United States should not favour either side.

Yet the administration failed to change Israeli policy, and Washington ended up backing it. Over time, the administration also adopted Israel’s own justifications of its position, so that US rhetoric began to mimic Israeli rhetoric. By February 2003, a Washington Post headline summarised the situation: ‘Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.’ The main reason for this switch was the Lobby.

The story begins in late September 2001, when Bush began urging Sharon to show restraint in the Occupied Territories. He also pressed him to allow Israel’s foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to meet with Yasser Arafat, even though he (Bush) was highly critical of Arafat’s leadership. Bush even said publicly that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. Alarmed, Sharon accused him of trying ‘to appease the Arabs at our expense’, warning that Israel ‘will not be Czechoslovakia’.

Bush was reportedly furious at being compared to Chamberlain, and the White House press secretary called Sharon’s remarks ‘unacceptable’. Sharon offered a pro forma apology, but quickly joined forces with the Lobby to persuade the administration and the American people that the United States and Israel faced a common threat from terrorism. Israeli officials and Lobby representatives insisted that there was no real difference between Arafat and Osama bin Laden: the United States and Israel, they said, should isolate the Palestinians’ elected leader and have nothing to do with him.

The Lobby also went to work in Congress. On 16 November, 89 senators sent Bush a letter praising him for refusing to meet with Arafat, but also demanding that the US not restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians; the administration, they wrote, must state publicly that it stood behind Israel. According to the New York Times, the letter ‘stemmed’ from a meeting two weeks before between ‘leaders of the American Jewish community and key senators’, adding that AIPAC was ‘particularly active in providing advice on the letter’.

By late November, relations between Tel Aviv and Washington had improved considerably. This was thanks in part to the Lobby’s efforts, but also to America’s initial victory in Afghanistan, which reduced the perceived need for Arab support in dealing with al-Qaida. Sharon visited the White House in early December and had a friendly meeting with Bush.

In April 2002 trouble erupted again, after the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield and resumed control of virtually all the major Palestinian areas on the West Bank. Bush knew that Israel’s actions would damage America’s image in the Islamic world and undermine the war on terrorism, so he demanded that Sharon ‘halt the incursions and begin withdrawal’. He underscored this message two days later, saying he wanted Israel to ‘withdraw without delay’. On 7 April, Condoleezza Rice, then Bush’s national security adviser, told reporters: ‘“Without delay” means without delay. It means now.’ That same day Colin Powell set out for the Middle East to persuade all sides to stop fighting and start negotiating.

Israel and the Lobby swung into action. Pro-Israel officials in the vice-president’s office and the Pentagon, as well as neo-conservative pundits like Robert Kagan and William Kristol, put the heat on Powell. They even accused him of having ‘virtually obliterated the distinction between terrorists and those fighting terrorists’. Bush himself was being pressed by Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals. Tom DeLay and Dick Armey were especially outspoken about the need to support Israel, and DeLay and the Senate minority leader, Trent Lott, visited the White House and warned Bush to back off.

The first sign that Bush was caving in came on 11 April – a week after he told Sharon to withdraw his forces – when the White House press secretary said that the president believed Sharon was ‘a man of peace’. Bush repeated this statement publicly on Powell’s return from his abortive mission, and told reporters that Sharon had responded satisfactorily to his call for a full and immediate withdrawal. Sharon had done no such thing, but Bush was no longer willing to make an issue of it.

Meanwhile, Congress was also moving to back Sharon. On 2 May, it overrode the administration’s objections and passed two resolutions reaffirming support for Israel. (The Senate vote was 94 to 2; the House of Representatives version passed 352 to 21.) Both resolutions held that the United States ‘stands in solidarity with Israel’ and that the two countries were, to quote the House resolution, ‘now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism’. The House version also condemned ‘the ongoing support and co-ordination of terror by Yasser Arafat’, who was portrayed as a central part of the terrorism problem. Both resolutions were drawn up with the help of the Lobby. A few days later, a bipartisan congressional delegation on a fact-finding mission to Israel stated that Sharon should resist US pressure to negotiate with Arafat. On 9 May, a House appropriations subcommittee met to consider giving Israel an extra $200 million to fight terrorism. Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it and Powell lost.

In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on the president of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev, a journalist on the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, reported that Sharon’s aides ‘could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell’s failure. Sharon saw the whites of President Bush’s eyes, they bragged, and the president blinked first.’ But it was Israel’s champions in the United States, not Sharon or Israel, that played the key role in defeating Bush.

The situation has changed little since then. The Bush administration refused ever again to have dealings with Arafat. After his death, it embraced the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but has done little to help him. Sharon continued to develop his plan to impose a unilateral settlement on the Palestinians, based on ‘disengagement’ from Gaza coupled with continued expansion on the West Bank. By refusing to negotiate with Abbas and making it impossible for him to deliver tangible benefits to the Palestinian people, Sharon’s strategy contributed directly to Hamas’s electoral victory. With Hamas in power, however, Israel has another excuse not to negotiate. The US administration has supported Sharon’s actions (and those of his successor, Ehud Olmert). Bush has even endorsed unilateral Israeli annexations in the Occupied Territories, reversing the stated policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson.

US officials have offered mild criticisms of a few Israeli actions, but have done little to help create a viable Palestinian state. Sharon has Bush ‘wrapped around his little finger’, the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft said in October 2004. If Bush tries to distance the US from Israel, or even criticises Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, he is certain to face the wrath of the Lobby and its supporters in Congress. Democratic presidential candidates understand that these are facts of life, which is the reason John Kerry went to great lengths to display unalloyed support for Israel in 2004, and why Hillary Clinton is doing the same thing today.

Maintaining US support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is essential as far as the Lobby is concerned, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.

Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’

On 16 August 2002, 11 days before Dick Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hardline speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported that ‘Israel is urging US officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.’ By this point, according to Sharon, strategic co-ordination between Israel and the US had reached ‘unprecedented dimensions’, and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programmes. As one retired Israeli general later put it, ‘Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non-conventional capabilities.’

Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when Bush decided to seek Security Council authorisation for war, and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let UN inspectors back in. ‘The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must,’ Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002. ‘Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors.’

At the same time, Ehud Barak wrote a New York Times op-ed warning that ‘the greatest risk now lies in inaction.’ His predecessor as prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, published a similar piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: ‘The Case for Toppling Saddam’. ‘Today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do,’ he declared. ‘I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in supporting a pre-emptive strike against Saddam’s regime.’ Or as Ha’aretz reported in February 2003, ‘the military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq.’

As Netanyahu suggested, however, the desire for war was not confined to Israel’s leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam invaded in 1990, Israel was the only country in the world where both politicians and public favoured war. As the journalist Gideon Levy observed at the time, ‘Israel is the only country in the West whose leaders support the war unreservedly and where no alternative opinion is voiced.’ In fact, Israelis were so gung-ho that their allies in America told them to damp down their rhetoric, or it would look as if the war would be fought on Israel’s behalf.

Within the US, the main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to Likud. But leaders of the Lobby’s major organisations lent their voices to the campaign. ‘As President Bush attempted to sell the . . . war in Iraq,’ the Forward reported, ‘America’s most important Jewish organisations rallied as one to his defence. In statement after statement community leaders stressed the need to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.’ The editorial goes on to say that ‘concern for Israel’s safety rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish groups.’

Although neo-conservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish community was not. Just after the war started, Samuel Freedman reported that ‘a compilation of nationwide opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52 per cent to 62 per cent.’ Clearly, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on ‘Jewish influence’. Rather, it was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially that of the neo-conservatives within it.

The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam’s removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA or WINEP, and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war.

At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David on 15 September, Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan, even though there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the US and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan. Bush rejected his advice and chose to go after Afghanistan instead, but war with Iraq was now regarded as a serious possibility and on 21 November the president charged military planners with developing concrete plans for an invasion.

Other neo-conservatives were meanwhile at work in the corridors of power. We don’t have the full story yet, but scholars like Bernard Lewis of Princeton and Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins reportedly played important roles in persuading Cheney that war was the best option, though neo-conservatives on his staff – Eric Edelman, John Hannah and Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff and one of the most powerful individuals in the administration – also played their part. By early 2002 Cheney had persuaded Bush; and with Bush and Cheney on board, war was inevitable.

Outside the administration, neo-conservative pundits lost no time in making the case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the war on terrorism. Their efforts were designed partly to keep up the pressure on Bush, and partly to overcome opposition to the war inside and outside the government. On 20 September, a group of prominent neo-conservatives and their allies published another open letter: ‘Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack,’ it read, ‘any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.’ The letter also reminded Bush that ‘Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism.’ In the 1 October issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for regime change in Iraq as soon as the Taliban was defeated. That same day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington Post that after the US was done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq: ‘The war on terrorism will conclude in Baghdad,’ when we finish off ‘the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world’.

This was the beginning of an unrelenting public relations campaign to win support for an invasion of Iraq, a crucial part of which was the manipulation of intelligence in such a way as to make it seem as if Saddam posed an imminent threat. For example, Libby pressured CIA analysts to find evidence supporting the case for war and helped prepare Colin Powell’s now discredited briefing to the UN Security Council. Within the Pentagon, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was charged with finding links between al-Qaida and Iraq that the intelligence community had supposedly missed. Its two key members were David Wurmser, a hard-core neo-conservative, and Michael Maloof, a Lebanese-American with close ties to Perle. Another Pentagon group, the so-called Office of Special Plans, was given the task of uncovering evidence that could be used to sell the war. It was headed by Abram Shulsky, a neo-conservative with long-standing ties to Wolfowitz, and its ranks included recruits from pro-Israel think tanks. Both these organisations were created after 9/11 and reported directly to Douglas Feith.

Like virtually all the neo-conservatives, Feith is deeply committed to Israel; he also has long-term ties to Likud. He wrote articles in the 1990s supporting the settlements and arguing that Israel should retain the Occupied Territories. More important, along with Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous ‘Clean Break’ report in June 1996 for Netanyahu, who had just become prime minister. Among other things, it recommended that Netanyahu ‘focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right’. It also called for Israel to take steps to reorder the entire Middle East. Netanyahu did not follow their advice, but Feith, Perle and Wurmser were soon urging the Bush administration to pursue those same goals. The Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar warned that Feith and Perle ‘are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments . . . and Israeli interests’.

Wolfowitz is equally committed to Israel. The Forward once described him as ‘the most hawkishly pro-Israel voice in the administration’, and selected him in 2002 as first among 50 notables who ‘have consciously pursued Jewish activism’. At about the same time, JINSA gave Wolfowitz its Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award for promoting a strong partnership between Israel and the United States; and the Jerusalem Post, describing him as ‘devoutly pro-Israel’, named him ‘Man of the Year’ in 2003.

Finally, a brief word is in order about the neo-conservatives’ prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous Iraqi exile who headed the Iraqi National Congress. They backed Chalabi because he had established close ties with Jewish-American groups and had pledged to foster good relations with Israel once he gained power. This was precisely what pro-Israel proponents of regime change wanted to hear. Matthew Berger laid out the essence of the bargain in the Jewish Journal: ‘The INC saw improved relations as a way to tap Jewish influence in Washington and Jerusalem and to drum up increased support for its cause. For their part, the Jewish groups saw an opportunity to pave the way for better relations between Israel and Iraq, if and when the INC is involved in replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime.’

Given the neo-conservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn’t surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests. Last March, Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee acknowledged that the belief that Israel and the neo-conservatives had conspired to get the US into a war in Iraq was ‘pervasive’ in the intelligence community. Yet few people would say so publicly, and most of those who did – including Senator Ernest Hollings and Representative James Moran – were condemned for raising the issue. Michael Kinsley wrote in late 2002 that ‘the lack of public discussion about the role of Israel . . . is the proverbial elephant in the room.’ The reason for the reluctance to talk about it, he observed, was fear of being labelled an anti-semite. There is little doubt that Israel and the Lobby were key factors in the decision to go to war. It’s a decision the US would have been far less likely to take without their efforts. And the war itself was intended to be only the first step. A front-page headline in the Wall Street Journal shortly after the war began says it all: ‘President’s Dream: Changing Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro-US, Democratic Area Is a Goal that Has Israeli and Neo-Conservative Roots.’

Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the US military more directly involved in the Middle East. But they had limited success during the Cold War, because America acted as an ‘off-shore balancer’ in the region. Most forces designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force, were kept ‘over the horizon’ and out of harm’s way. The idea was to play local powers off against each other – which is why the Reagan administration supported Saddam against revolutionary Iran during the Iran-Iraq War – in order to maintain a balance favourable to the US.

This policy changed after the first Gulf War, when the Clinton administration adopted a strategy of ‘dual containment’. Substantial US forces would be stationed in the region in order to contain both Iran and Iraq, instead of one being used to check the other. The father of dual containment was none other than Martin Indyk, who first outlined the strategy in May 1993 at WINEP and then implemented it as director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.

By the mid-1990s there was considerable dissatisfaction with dual containment, because it made the United States the mortal enemy of two countries that hated each other, and forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both. But it was a strategy the Lobby favoured and worked actively in Congress to preserve. Pressed by AIPAC and other pro-Israel forces, Clinton toughened up the policy in the spring of 1995 by imposing an economic embargo on Iran. But AIPAC and the others wanted more. The result was the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which imposed sanctions on any foreign companies investing more than $40 million to develop petroleum resources in Iran or Libya. As Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz, noted at the time, ‘Israel is but a tiny element in the big scheme, but one should not conclude that it cannot influence those within the Beltway.’

By the late 1990s, however, the neo-conservatives were arguing that dual containment was not enough and that regime change in Iraq was essential. By toppling Saddam and turning Iraq into a vibrant democracy, they argued, the US would trigger a far-reaching process of change throughout the Middle East. The same line of thinking was evident in the ‘Clean Break’ study the neo-conservatives wrote for Netanyahu. By 2002, when an invasion of Iraq was on the front-burner, regional transformation was an article of faith in neo-conservative circles.

Charles Krauthammer describes this grand scheme as the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, but Israelis across the political spectrum believed that toppling Saddam would alter the Middle East to Israel’s advantage. Aluf Benn reported in Ha’aretz (17 February 2003):

Senior IDF officers and those close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, such as National Security Adviser Ephraim Halevy, paint a rosy picture of the wonderful future Israel can expect after the war. They envision a domino effect, with the fall of Saddam Hussein followed by that of Israel’s other enemies . . . Along with these leaders will disappear terror and weapons of mass destruction.

Once Baghdad fell in mid-April 2003, Sharon and his lieutenants began urging Washington to target Damascus. On 16 April, Sharon, interviewed in Yedioth Ahronoth, called for the United States to put ‘very heavy’ pressure on Syria, while Shaul Mofaz, his defence minister, interviewed in Ma’ariv, said: ‘We have a long list of issues that we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians and it is appropriate that it should be done through the Americans.’ Ephraim Halevy told a WINEP audience that it was now important for the US to get rough with Syria, and the Washington Post reported that Israel was ‘fuelling the campaign’ against Syria by feeding the US intelligence reports about the actions of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president.

Prominent members of the Lobby made the same arguments. Wolfowitz declared that ‘there has got to be regime change in Syria,’ and Richard Perle told a journalist that ‘a short message, a two-worded message’ could be delivered to other hostile regimes in the Middle East: ‘You’re next.’ In early April, WINEP released a bipartisan report stating that Syria ‘should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam’s reckless, irresponsible and defiant behaviour could end up sharing his fate’. On 15 April, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled ‘Next, Turn the Screws on Syria’, while the following day Zev Chafets wrote an article for the New York Daily News entitled ‘Terror-Friendly Syria Needs a Change, Too’. Not to be outdone, Lawrence Kaplan wrote in the New Republic on 21 April that Assad was a serious threat to America.

Back on Capitol Hill, Congressman Eliot Engel had reintroduced the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. It threatened sanctions against Syria if it did not withdraw from Lebanon, give up its WMD and stop supporting terrorism, and it also called for Syria and Lebanon to take concrete steps to make peace with Israel. This legislation was strongly endorsed by the Lobby – by AIPAC especially – and ‘framed’, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, ‘by some of Israel’s best friends in Congress’. The Bush administration had little enthusiasm for it, but the anti-Syrian act passed overwhelmingly (398 to 4 in the House; 89 to 4 in the Senate), and Bush signed it into law on 12 December 2003.

The administration itself was still divided about the wisdom of targeting Syria. Although the neo-conservatives were eager to pick a fight with Damascus, the CIA and the State Department were opposed to the idea. And even after Bush signed the new law, he emphasised that he would go slowly in implementing it. His ambivalence is understandable. First, the Syrian government had not only been providing important intelligence about al-Qaida since 9/11: it had also warned Washington about a planned terrorist attack in the Gulf and given CIA interrogators access to Mohammed Zammar, the alleged recruiter of some of the 9/11 hijackers. Targeting the Assad regime would jeopardise these valuable connections, and thereby undermine the larger war on terrorism.

Second, Syria had not been on bad terms with Washington before the Iraq war (it had even voted for UN Resolution 1441), and was itself no threat to the United States. Playing hardball with it would make the US look like a bully with an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Third, putting Syria on the hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to bring pressure to bear, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first. Yet Congress insisted on putting the screws on Damascus, largely in response to pressure from Israeli officials and groups like AIPAC. If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability Act, and US policy towards Damascus would have been more in line with the national interest.

Israelis tend to describe every threat in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous enemy because it is the most likely to acquire nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons as a threat to their existence. ‘Iraq is a problem . . . But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq,’ the defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, remarked a month before the Iraq war.

Sharon began pushing the US to confront Iran in November 2002, in an interview in the Times. Describing Iran as the ‘centre of world terror’, and bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, he declared that the Bush administration should put the strong arm on Iran ‘the day after’ it conquered Iraq. In late April 2003, Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam, he noted, was ‘not enough’. In his words, America ‘has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran.’

The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran. On 6 May, the AEI co-sponsored an all-day conference on Iran with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute, both champions of Israel. The speakers were all strongly pro-Israel, and many called for the US to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy. As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives made the case for going after Iran. ‘The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East . . . But the next great battle – not, we hope, a military battle – will be for Iran,’ William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard on 12 May.

The administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to create a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure. Op-eds and other articles now warn of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement of a ‘terrorist’ regime, and hint darkly of preventive action should diplomacy fail. The Lobby is pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions. Israeli officials also warn they may take pre-emptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, threats partly intended to keep Washington’s attention on the issue.

One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on policy towards Iran, because the US has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear. There is some truth in this, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.

It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel’s enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel will end up protected by the world’s only superpower. This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s point of view, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.

Can the Lobby’s power be curtailed? One would like to think so, given the Iraq debacle, the obvious need to rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Islamic world, and the recent revelations about AIPAC officials passing US government secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat’s death and the election of the more moderate Mahmoud Abbas would cause Washington to press vigorously and even-handedly for a peace agreement. In short, there are ample grounds for leaders to distance themselves from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy more consistent with broader US interests. In particular, using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the cause of democracy in the region.

But that is not going to happen – not soon anyway. AIPAC and its allies (including Christian Zionists) have no serious opponents in the lobbying world. They know it has become more difficult to make Israel’s case today, and they are responding by taking on staff and expanding their activities. Besides, American politicians remain acutely sensitive to campaign contributions and other forms of political pressure, and major media outlets are likely to remain sympathetic to Israel no matter what it does.

The Lobby’s influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face – including America’s European allies. It has made it impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathisers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.

Equally worrying, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the US to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We don’t need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility towards Syria and Iran makes it almost impossible for Washington to enlist them in the struggle against al-Qaida and the Iraqi insurgency, where their help is badly needed.

There is a moral dimension here as well. Thanks to the Lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians. This situation undercuts Washington’s efforts to promote democracy abroad and makes it look hypocritical when it presses other states to respect human rights. US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which only encourages Iran and others to seek a similar capability.

Besides, the Lobby’s campaign to quash debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing sceptics by organising blacklists and boycotts – or by suggesting that critics are anti-semites – violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends. The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel’s backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned.

Finally, the Lobby’s influence has been bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities – including a peace treaty with Syria and a prompt and full implementation of the Oslo Accords – that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists. Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel more secure, and the long campaign to kill or marginalise a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and US policy more even-handed.

There is a ray of hope, however. Although the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality cannot be ignored for ever. What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel’s well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided US support and could move the US to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well.

10 March

Footnotes

An unedited version of this article is available at http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011, or at http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=891198.

John Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at Chicago, and the author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

Stephen Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His most recent book is Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy.

i know you wont read this dave- because you never read anything that disturbs the comfort of your beliefs- but ill post it anyway

Why do Palestinians want to destroy Israel and drive Israeli Jews into the sea?

למאמר בעברית

Posted on AUGUST-2-2001

This is the question asked most frequently by Israelis and Zionists. We will answer the question indirectly by asking the question below:

Are you aware that Israeli Zionists, during the 1948 war, pushed over 150,000 Palestinian refugees into the sea?

For a long time, Zionists have been propagating fear based propaganda to their followers, probably this picture can tell you a bit of the real story, click here for more details. It's misleading and unfair to focus on what Palestinians might allegedly do in the future, while the past and present of Palestinians are filled with Israeli war crimes. These types of accusations are meant to deflect and confuse the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The core issues of the conflict are the collective DISPOSSESSION and ETHNIC CLEANSING (compulsory population transfer) of the Palestinian people for the past five decades. It should be emphasized that the conflict would have been at the same level of intensity, even if both warring parties had been Muslims, Christians, or even Jewish.

Since the inception of Zionism, its leaders have been keen on creating a "Jewish State" based on a "Jewish majority" by mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, primarily European Jews fleeing from anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. When a "Jewish majority" was impossible to achieve, based on Jewish immigration and natural growth, Zionist leaders (such as Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and Chaim Weizmann) concluded that "population transfer" was the only solution to what they referred to as the "Arab Problem." Year after year, the plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous people became known as the "transfer solution". David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, eloquently articulated the "transfer solution" as the following:

* In a joint meeting between the Jewish Agency Executive and Zionist Action Committee on June 12th, 1938:

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] .... I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (Righteous Victims p. 144).
* In a speech addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut on December 30, 1947:
"In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment, will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority .... There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176 & Benny Morris p. 28)
* And on February 8th, 1948 Ben-Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:.

"From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)
* In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6th, 1948:.

"We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area ..... I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of Arab population." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)
* Click here for more "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing) quotes from Zionist leaders.

For Israelis and Zionists to excuse themselves from any war crimes, such as compulsory population transfer (Ethnic Cleansing) and dispossessing the Palestinian people, they've resorted to a myth that Palestinians left their homes, farms, businesses, banks, boats, cars, etc. based on their free will, click here to read our rebuttal of this concocted myth.

Jaffa May 1948, Palestinians were being pushed into the see by the attacking Israeli Army

There is no denying the fact that some Palestinians think as many Zionists do (a Palestinian version of Zionism), and very possibly they do so because they were the victims of such treatment themselves. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, you have to agree that it is human nature to respond to terror with terror, and to racism with racism, these are facts that all decent people must accept and deplore simultaneously. No matter what the circumstances are (such as the urge to seek vengeance, revenge, reprisals, etc.), targeting civilians to achieve political or military objectives, in either war or non-war situations, is terrorism. It should be noted that the Palestinian people have been on the receiving end of Israeli terrorism (the chief aspect of which are the collective DISPOSSESSION and ETHNIC CLEANSING of 8.5 million Palestinians) for the past five decades.

Finally, the Palestinian mainstream does not and will not condone massive ethnic cleansing such as that which Israelis and Zionists have perpetrated against to the Palestinian people. Palestinians, as Muslim and Arabs, have a long history and track record which proves exactly the opposite. Omar Ibn al-Khatab's and Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem are solid proof of how Arabs and Muslims treated their defeated subjects fairly during the Byzantines and the Crusades respectively. Ironically, many of today's Christian Palestinians trace their roots to the Crusades, such as the famous Rock family of Jaffa. In other words, if freeing Palestine would imply perpetrating war crimes similar to the ones perpetrated against the Palestinian people, Palestinians will wait for another Omar or Saladin to right the wrongs of the past. The Muslim Arabs have their history to prove their tolerance towards their subjects, however, the Israelis and Zionists have their track record to speak for them. Palestine Remembered has been explicitly built to expose and uncover Israeli war crimes and to AMPLIFY the voices of the Palestinian refugees.

-Video: Sands of Sorrow -Depicting the lives of Palestinian refugees soon after Nakba
-Satellite View & Google Earth: Over 3,000 placemarks identifying all destroyed towns, W. Bank & Gaza Strip Towns, & refugee camps.
-The ethnic cleansing of Palestine: George Galloway interviews Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe.
-Zionist FAQ now available in Hebrew שאלות שציונים שואלים, עכשיו בעברית
-Video: The Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer report on the influence of the Israel Lobby on U.S. Foreign Policy
-The Nakba - an event that did not occur (although it had to occur) By Eitan Bronstein
-The Palestinian-Israeli conflict for beginners
-JNF: Financing Racism and Apartheid By Dr. Salman Abu Sitta

dave- painting a vivd picture of an angry me brandishing a placard as some sort of weapon against a peaceful and confused jewish population CANT BE YOUR ANSWER FOR WEVERYTHING!!!

it doesnt even make sense- i have never held a placard n my life-

anyway- you were going on the assumption that i had information i didnt have-

peter explained it- and ended up making the same point i did-

hillarys up for the presidency!

shes a new york senator- her constituency contains a very vocal jewish population-

did you see what happened to barak obama when he said the palestininas were suffering at an AIPAC meeting?

he had to retract it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

politicians are not ever n ALLOWED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR SUFFERING!

IT DOESNT EXIST IN THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF AMERICA!

how is that for denial and revisionism and censorship and control?

still- what is your point anyway?

anyone who was alive at the time and interested enough to pay attention and do the tiniest bit of research knows that the deal offered would be a death sentence for the palestinians -

all the water was stolen!

slowly they are being squeezed tighter and tighter until now they are actually starving and need international aid groups to get food to them-

while israelis sunbathe european style a stones throw away- protected by , well american money and military support-

i dont care what you think about it dave-
i didnt find one single poster or panelist here wo addressed the issue of israeli's treatment of the indigenous peoples of their stolen land-

not one dave-
i thought you might have a reason but you have consistently slipped away from answering the question also-

your answers-

'i dont have enough information- then no one has enough information (not true)

and the best one -

i trust my leaders to make good decisions-

but then you go on a rampage attacking , who?
ONE OF OUR LEADERS!

so the fact is - there is some indoctrination process you went through and were so young when it happened you dont even seem to be aware of it-

so anything israeli is good-

evidence doesnt matter-
facts dont matter

the only thing that matters iswhatever supports your emotional attachment to a land called israel that 150 years ago no jewish person in the wolrd ever even considered-

there was no 'next year in jerusalem' like the sad eyed yenta laments in fiddler on the roof (a norman jewison film) even 50 years before the fictional character pulled our collective heartstrings with that one-

there was no concept of return to israel until G_D HIMSELF decided to let his people come home-

WHICH HASNT HAPPENED DAVE!
this is a man- made policial land grab conceived of by an atheist political group called zionist and baked up in the brain of Herzl in 1897

and he was willing to let 10s of thousands of jews die so his political realization could take place-

so your further caricature of me with a protest sign are not only patently false- they are disruptive and lend absolutely nothing to the discussion-

When Carter's book came out Wolf Blitzer (who had worked for AIPAC) tried to get Dennis Ross to comment on the book in open air...Dennis questioned the maps... saying that carter got them from a source that may or may not be right...Carter acknowledged that his researchers provided him with the maps...Dennis at the time had not read the book ...I am sure he has since, But the fact is well documented by Finkelstien, and other pro peace intellectuals that Arafat could not accept the peace offer because of the territorial and WATER/econmic conditions that would exist. It was a "suicidal" deal...we all know it.

When Mrs. Clinton called for a Palistine in the early 90's she was ripped by AIPAC and since then she backed off of some of her stances on the Israeli conflict...she now is a Hawk for Israel.Election time has a way of creeping in. The point being is this type of dialog only prolongs the conflict ...Think outside of the box...Peace is the answer butr not one that takes away the viability of the vanguished.

Victoria:

You said:

"anyway- how can published maps be disputed post-publishing?"

And Peter carried on about the same topic. So I supplied information.

I responded at length about what the World Court "declared." There was no finding of facts with challenging of witnesses.

"you refute and refute-"

I agree. I do not think you actually meant refute.

"i come back with validating information which yo just ignore and go off on something else-"

I do not ignore it. You post the same factoids over and over again as if I can not read. I view that as the march up and down with posters line of discourse. It has its uses but advances no discussion. I have raised various issues with what you repeatedly post and provided various information which you seem to treat as if it were noise not information.

And so it goes in the world as well as here.

dave- i dont have carters book- dont know what he contended- dont know what ross contends-

i dont really know quite what youre contending either-

just spit it out -

what is it youre trying to say?

say it clearly-

what maps and what are you talking about?

and what has all this got to do with the price of hotdogs on coney island anyway?

we were talking about the world court declaring the united states a terrorist country-

now youre off on another topic-
cant you ever finish a conversation or acknowledge it in a logical manner?

you refute and refute- i come back with validating information which yo just ignore and go off on something else-

im still ready and willing to go onto religion as you suggested-

id prefer it actually- its easily verified if the scripture is agreed upon as a source for both of us then that is a good base to start a reasonable debate

you keep switching up every day

lets have a tiny bit of continuity

I have been trying to get an explanation of how you sort out truth from what is false, what is ambiguous, and what is uncertain. It seems that what fits your views you like and what does not, you don't like. But that is no algorithm to brag about. If you always trust sources, why is that? If you never trust sources, why is that?

This is by Dennis Ross:

"I was concerned less with where the maps had originally come from — Mr. Carter has said that he used an atlas that was published after my book appeared — and more with how they were labeled. To my mind, Mr. Carter’s presentation badly misrepresents the Middle East proposals advanced by President Bill Clinton in 2000, and in so doing undermines, in a small but important way, efforts to bring peace to the region.

In his book, Mr. Carter juxtaposes two maps labeled the “Palestinian Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal 2000” and “Israeli Interpretation of Clinton’s Proposal 2000.”

The problem is that the “Palestinian interpretation” is actually taken from an Israeli map presented during the Camp David summit meeting in July 2000, while the “Israeli interpretation” is an approximation of what President Clinton subsequently proposed in December of that year. Without knowing this, the reader is left to conclude that the Clinton proposals must have been so ambiguous and unfair that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was justified in rejecting them. But that is simply untrue."

So why is Carter to be believed and Ross not to be believed?

Hey guys enough with the Carter Bashing,,,,a map is that best you can do....keep perpetuating myth...say enough and maybe it will stick...Give us a break we all know that the road to peace begins with the Truth...

dave- i thought we were moving on to religion?

anyway- how can published maps be disputed post-publishing?

maps are maps

also id be interested when clinton told the AJC this as hillary has a strong jewish base and did you know that shes running for president?

dates please but even still, how can you argue about a map thats already been published?

"Former President Clinton told the American Jewish Committee he was "grateful" for the group's critiques of Jimmy Carter's claims about Clinton's peacemaking efforts.

"I don’t know where his information (or conclusions) come from," Clinton wrote in a handwritten note to AJCommittee Executive Director David Harris, who had critiqued former President Carter's book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," "but Dennis Ross has tried to straighten it out, publicly and in two letters to him. At any rate, I'm grateful."

Ross, Clinton's top envoy to the region, has disputed Carter's contention that the Clinton-sanctioned offer Israel made to the Palestinians in 2000 would have left them with just small Bantustans. Ross says Carter misrepresented maps Ross published outlining the offer."

mercy dave im not upset-
i dont care if you agree with me- i just like the mental exercise-

if you want to change tacks and move onto religious reasoning as you indicated before- thats fine by me-
if you dont,thats also fine.

Victoria,

You and many other people are clearly upset because many people do not think your truths are true and many more will not do what you want them to do. Yet the bottom line is much of what you have been presenting here recently is strident insistence that you are right and everything I have said is meaningless. That is fine. I simply do not think people who reason as you do have anywhere to look but themselves for why they are not heeded by many people.

btw dave- sure- if you want to get into religious reasoning - okey doke-

make a point

so i ask again-

any rebuttals, thoughts, or anything applicable to the content of my comment-

or another round of distracting off topic vagueness?
peace dave- we all want peace-

thats a given-

but any thoughts on the issues addressed?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

another round of distracting off topic vagueness it is!

ok larry- youre fabulously wrong in your analysis of me but if you must go , you must go
peace

Well Victoria, I think the time has finally come for this thread to end. You are now equating Israel with Imperialism?

I have come to the following conclusions about you.

1. You would prefer it if Israel did not exist.

2. You woud give all of Israel's territory to the "Palestinians".
Note I did not say "back" to the Palestinians. Israel has a very legitimate historical claim on that territory, notwithstanding the holocaust.

3. You would stop or vastly reduce American aid to its only dependable ally in the region. Do you really trust the Saudis?

4.You have way, way too much time on your hands.

Enjoy the day.

Well Victoria, I think the time has finally come for this thread to end. You are now equating Israel with Imperialism?

I have come to the following conclusions about you.

1. You would prefer it if Israel did not exist.

2. You woud give all of Israel's territory to the "Palestinians".
Note I did not say "back" to the Palestinians. Israel has a very legitimate historical claim on that territory, notwithstanding the holocaust.

3. You would stop or vastly reduce American aid to its only dependable ally in the region. Do you really trust the Saudis?

4.You have way, way too much time on your hands.

Enjoy the day.

Victoria,

It always surprises me when intelligent people can not see what are actually fairly simple points. Your reasoning about empire is circular. I did not say check dictionaries and evaluate what they say based on the assumption that Israel is an empire. Read history books about the entities they describe as empires. You will find that their mode of government, objectives, and power were far different than Israel's.

"your thinking is controlled by anti-semitic thought processes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

souns like the familiar cry of anti-semitism in the face of indisputable facts and history-

If you think that is what Judaism is about, you are either pitifully ignorant, anti-semitic, or both.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

more anti-semitism accusations but thats ok-"

Your view of what an empire is shows that your indisputable facts are indisputable only because those who view things as you do are so sure they are right that they take dissent as a sign of stupidity or malice.

Note the statements were not made to you and the first is not the complete sentence. And you do not bother to think about what the statements I referred to contain. No mention of anti-semitism is permissible today by the author's reasoning. It died with the Third Reich. Any mention of anti-semitism or the Shoah is part of a vast Jewish propaganda plot to justify the state of Israel. That is what the person I was addressing quotes with approval. You have used what I said as an opportunity to throw out another slogan. And it matches the thinking of the author which is that all concern about anti-semitism is a plot to justify what is unjustifiable and should clearly be condemned.

"so dave- i know an awful lot about judaism in particular-"

That statement surprises me. Which aspects of Judaism are you an expert on?

well, lets be very literal about this then-

you said-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And from the point of view of plain old common sense, how can anyone imagine Zionism is imperialistic in the sense that word is used in history books?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dictionary.com
im·pe·ri·al·ism
1. the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.

definitely fits israel-

2. advocacy of imperial interests.
3. an imperial system of government.
4. imperial government.
5. British. the policy of so uniting the separate parts of an empire with separate governments as to secure for certain purposes a single state.

still fits israel--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
—
American Heritage Dictionary -
im·pe·ri·al·ism
n.

1. The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.

yup- still fits---

2. The system, policies, or practices of such a government.
no contradicton yet-

WordNet -
imperialism

1. a policy of extending your rule over foreign countries

that would be palestine- still applies to israel

2. a political orientation that advocates imperial interests

zionist israel still seamlessly fits
3. any instance of aggressive extension of authority

well, theres certainly no doubt about that one-

ok dave-
it is a very apt and specific description of israel - from common sense to history books-

and again you said-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
your thinking is controlled by anti-semitic thought processes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

souns like the familiar cry of anti-semitism in the face of indisputable facts and history-

and of course dave- you are welcome to disprove any point with substantiation-

your silence on this matter will be considered your inability to rebut

sources dave- its all about verifiable sources

and then you said
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you think that is what Judaism is about, you are either pitifully ignorant, anti-semitic, or both.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

more anti-semitism accusations but thats ok-

so dave- i know an awful lot about judaism in particular-

i sat in temple alot in my younger years

so from a religious perspective i would say that has been the success of seeling zonism to the world-

most people (even jewish people) have very little knowledge about judaism and what it actually exhorts-

especially christians who start reading the bible some rainy day and get 1/4 way through genesis and fill the rest in with their imaginations-

(a bit like how you read the article provided i imagine)

let alone talmud and commentaries - virtually unknown to most-

it is this ignorance in particular that has allowed most people to believe the lies that zionists later added on and propogated that israel is a return of the people to the land given to them by g_d.

it was this study of judaism that led me to zionism that led me to the only moral and conscientious stand possible for me which is anti-zionism.

so- since youve brought it up-

any rebuttals, thoughts, or anything applicable to the content of my comment-

or another round of distracting off topic vagueness?
peace dave- we all want peace-

thats a given-

but any thoughts on the issues addressed?

"the resurfacing of the charge of ‘antisemitism’, directed against critics of Israel’s behaviour"

That is brutally anti-semitic.

The man quoted is an Irish Dominican friar. I do not think it would be ecumenically sound to pursue this further.

The Catholic term for this monk's position is Invincible Ignorance as I recall.

"Michael Prior CM argues that to be opposed to exclusivist, oppressive, imperialistic Zionism is not to be antisemitic but to be in favour of making a better moral future for all the peoples in the troubled region of the Holy Land."

If you are sure that variant of Zionism is what AIPAC is trying to protect, your thinking is controlled by anti-semitic thought processes. If you think that is what Judaism is about, you are either pitifully ignorant, anti-semitic, or both.

And from the point of view of plain old common sense, how can anyone imagine Zionism is imperialistic in the sense that word is used in history books?

Distinguishing antizionism from antisemitism

Michael Prior CM argues that to be opposed to exclusivist, oppressive, imperialistic Zionism is not to be antisemitic but to be in favour of making a better moral future for all the peoples in the troubled region of the Holy Land.

Virtually as soon as the State of Israel begins to be criticised for its behaviour towards the Palestinians one notices two developments in the West: an immediate increase in the number of media outlets portraying aspects of the Shoah – the Nazi’s ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem’ – and the resurfacing of the charge of ‘antisemitism’, directed against critics of Israel’s behaviour. While these recurring tendencies are the products of a range of emotions that run deeper than logic they do lock into two common misunderstandings.

The State of Israel is frequently portrayed as simply ‘the Jewish response to the Shoah.’ Thus, the Nazis’ horrors prove that Zionism was justified, and Zionist Jews – many Jews are anti-Zionist, post-Zionist, or just tired of the whole business – and the Israelis justify the displacement of the indigenous Palestinians, and exculpate Israel of virtually any maltreatment of the remaining Palestinians. The eccentric nature of such an interpretation of morality, held by even some of the most liberal Israelis, somehow escapes serious analysis.

Secondly, even while being the perpetrator of a gross and ongoing injustice on the indigenous Palestinians, Israel presents itself as an innocent victim above reproach. When criticised, Israelis, then, are casualties of perennial, ubiquitous and irridentist antisemitism. To offset even the most timid Catholic criticism, the saga of ‘the Christian contempt of Judaism’, and the allegedly despicable performance of Pius XII during the Second World War are played over, again and again.

Zionism: a substitute for Judaism
It is, however, self-deluding for Israelis and their supporters to conclude that criticism of Israel is mostly a manifestation of Jew-hatred, or that Israel is being singled out simply because it is a Jewish state. It is also naïve to present Political Zionism as a response to the Shoah, and it is less than honest to equiparate Zionism with either Judaism or Jewry. It is important to situate the birth of Zionism in its historical context. This reveals its secular, indeed anti-religious nature, evoking virtually universal condemnation from the rabbis, as well as its transparently colonialist nature.

In Der Judenstaat (1896) – more appropriately translated ‘the state for Jews’, to distinguish it from the implications of a Jewish state (Jüdischer Staat) – Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) outlined his Political Zionism, and provided the major ideological drive to establish the state for Jews. Herzlian Zionism was a secular ideology from its inception. Herzl had no sense of Jewish culture and no attachment to Judaism. Indeed, while in Vienna in 1881-82, he had considered even mass Jewish conversion to Catholicism as a solution to the problem of being a Jew in Europe. By 1895 he had lost all hope that Jews would ever be fully assimilated into European society, and judged efforts to combat antisemitism to be futile.

Herzl insisted that Jews world-wide constituted one people and a ‘distinctive nationality’, whose problem could be solved only through the ‘restoration’ of the Jewish state. Just as ‘Pan-Germanism’ proclaimed that everyone of German race, blood or descent owed their primary loyalty to the homeland, so Jews, wherever they lived, constituted a distinct nation, whose welfare could be advanced only through establishing a Jewish nation-state, preferably in Palestine.

Nation or religious community?
His project immediately ran into opposition from the religious establishment, being perceived as a conscious repudiation of the most fundamental tenets of Judaism. For Orthodox Jews the diaspora was a condition ordained by God, who alone would bring it to an end. That the Zionist movement would arrogate to itself the agency for the restoration of the Jewish people to its ancestral land – uniquely the task of the Messiah – was sheer blasphemy. Reform Judaism, for its part, viewing Jewish history as evolutionary, rejected the notion that Jews outside Palestine were ‘in exile’, insisting that Jews constituted a religious community, rather than a nation, and were citizens of many states.

Zionism was not merely a variant on the Jewish faith, but a substitute for it. Herzl and his Zionism were anathema to the most influential eastern European rabbis. In the West, his own Chief Rabbi in Vienna, Moritz Güdemann, objected that the Jews were not a nation, and that Zionism was incompatible with Judaism. Similarly France’s Grand Rabbin, Zadok Kahn, protested. The German Rabbinical Council publicly condemned the efforts of ‘the so-called Zionists’ to create a Jewish national state in Palestine as contrary to Holy Writ. Belgium’s Grand Rabbin, M.A. Bloch, also protested, describing Zionist aspirations as far from those of Judaism. The Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, Hermann Adler, who had received Herzl in London, viewed his programme as an ‘egregious blunder’ and an ‘absolutely mischievous project.’ He considered the Zionist movement to be opposed to the teaching of Judaism.

The Zionist movement was considered to be a rebellion against classical Judaism, and with good reason. For political Zionists, religion was irrational, and a repressive and regressive force. For them, salvation lay in escaping from the prison of the sacred, and the hypnotic spell of the Bible. Judaism was a weight of lead attached to the feet of Jews. For such people, religion was a symptom of Jewry’s sickness in exile. Zionist Palestine would be new, secular, and qualitatively different from the past of the diaspora.

Agudat Yisrael, formed in Germany in 1912 to present a united Orthodox front, in the face of the dangers posed by secularisation, assimilation and Herzlian Jewish nationalism, was consistently opposed to Zionism because of its arrogating to itself the divine initiative. It considered Zionism to be a pseudo-messianic, satanic conspiracy against God whose responsibility alone it was to gather in the Jews. Moreover, Zionism was bent on removing from Jewish communal life the religious values which had united Jews down the ages. Zionism, then, strove to protect Jewish life, while abandoning the values which had sustained it. The abandonment of what was most characteristically Jewish in the pursuit of purely secular, nineteenth century European notions of nationhood, was, for them, the ultimate form of assimilation.

‘Promised land’ of Israel
Although thoroughly despised as an aspiration by mainstream Orthodox and Reform Judaism until the 1930s and 40s, Zionism, even in its most expansionist and imperialist form, now has virtually unquestioning support in mainstream religious Jewish circles, especially in the wake of the ‘miraculous victory’ of the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. For many religious Jews, formerly secular, anti-religious Zionism has been metamorphosed and even clothed in the garments of piety. Thus, the late Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, Immanuel Jakobivits, could claim that the origins of the Zionist idea were entirely religious, holding that ‘The Bible is our mandate’. And more recently, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks considers the State of Israel to be the most powerful collective expression of Jewry. Its birth was a coming to the promised land, in the line of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Ezra and Nehemiah. The very existence of the state, he affirms, testifies to the power of hope sustained by prayer. Prayer shawls might sit somewhat uncomfortably on the shoulders of Prime Ministers Begin, Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon.

Despite the volte-face of the establishment, both in Israel and abroad, religious opposition to Political Zionism has not altogether been suffocated. Although it still retains some of its ideological non-Zionism, and even anti-Zionism Agudat Yisrael has reached an accommodation with Political Zionism. Other more rejectionist religious groups regard the state as an abomination. For the ‘ultra-Orthodox’ movement – the most undefiled Jews in their own terms – hell had entered Israel with Herzl. Several communities in Israel and elsewhere hold that the state is an act of rebellion against God, because the initiative for ‘ingathering’ must be God’s.

In particular, Neturei Karta, founded in Jerusalem in 1938, refuses to recognise the authority of ‘the illegitimate so-called ‘State of Israel’’. For them, Zionism is the most pernicious movement in Jewish history. The miraculous event of 1967 is merely the temptation of the righteous to be lured away from authentic salvation. Unlike most participants in the debate who never consider the moral question of the impact of Political Zionism on the indigenous Palestinians, Neturei Karta is distressed at the injustices to the Palestinians in the name of Jewishness. It stresses that the Talmud and Midrash explicitly prohibit premature attempts to end exile, and insists that the ‘pseudo religion of Zionism’ is a product of the abandonment of the Torah and a demonising of all nations.

Barren, secular Zionism
World Jewry, they claim, is implicated in Israel’s violence against the Palestinians. Since Israel is now the most dangerous place in the world for Jews, Zionism’s ‘dismal failure’ in solving the ‘Jewish question’ by ‘ending exile’ should be acknowledged, and this should lead to the total dismantling of the Israeli state and the transfer of sovereignty to Palestinian rule. Already too much blood has been shed on the altar of a nineteenth century colonial nationalism, misapplied to the Jewish people. From being a people of faith, Zionism has changed Jewishness to a barren secular, ethnic identity.

True Jews, they insist, are not allowed to dominate, kill, harm or demean another people. They deplore the systematic uprooting of ancient Jewish communities by the Zionists, and the shedding of Jewish and non-Jewish blood for the sake of Zionist sovereignty. After fifty-four years, five wars, endless terror and counter-terror, innocent civilians dead on both sides, there is, they bemoan, no solution in sight. They regard Zionism as a tragic experiment. The land belongs to those who have dwelt there for centuries. Whether the Palestinians allow a few or many Jews to maintain citizenship in their state is entirely up to them.

Despite the recent adulation of Zionism in Jewish religious circles – and that constituency has, in one of the most extraordinary ideological metamorphoses of the twentieth century, moved from castigating Zionism as a heresy to embracing it, and being its most enthusiastic supporter – it hardly appears reasonable to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Judaism. Indeed, in the estimation of some religious Jews, Zionism is the very antithesis of Judaism.1

The original sin of Zionism: ethnic cleansing
The religious discourse invariably is an exclusively inner-Jewish one, scarcely moving beyond discussing ‘what is good, or bad, for the Jews’. There is inescapably, however, a fundamental moral problem at the core of the Zionist programme which no amount of special pleading, or pretence to innocence, can side-step. This relates to the Zionist determination to establish a state for Jews at the expense of the indigenous Arabs. This resolve, of course, was contrary to the basic assumption of European nationalisms – that the community/nation desiring independence from the imperial power was indigenous to the relevant territory. In Herzl’s day, Jews constituted less than five per cent of the population of Palestine. Herzl’s claim to construct a state ‘like every other nation’, then, involved special pleading, of colonial proportions.

In line with stereotypical colonialist prejudices, Herzl dismissed the impact of his plans on the indigenous people. He knew what was needed to establish a state for Jews in a land already inhabited. An entry in his diary of 12 June 1895 signals his plans. Having occupied the land and expropriated the private property, ‘We shall endeavour to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed, procuring employment for it in the transit countries, but denying it any employment in our own country.’ He added that both ‘the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly’.

Moreover, there is a ‘mountain’ of evidence in the Zionist archives tracing the consistency of this line of thinking within the Jewish leadership in Palestine. It demonstrates that the expulsion of the indigenous Arabs was foreseen as necessary, was systematically planned and was executed at the first opportunity, in 1948. From it we learn in detail how prominent was the necessity of ‘transfer’ in the thinking of the Zionist leadership from the middle 1930s, at least. We read of the establishment and comportment of the two ‘Population Transfer Committees’ (1937 through 1944) and the third Population Transfer Committee established by the Israeli cabinet in August 1948.2 The damage done to the indigenous population, then, was neither accidental nor due to the unique pressures of war, but was at the heart of the Zionist enterprise from the beginning. The Zionist archives themselves, then, fundamentally undermine the Zionist pretence that its intentions were altogether innocent, if not indeed altruistic. They demonstrate that the imperative to ‘transfer’ the indigenous Arab population was at the very core of the Zionist enterprise from the beginning, and was pursued with determination.

Expulsion of Arabs
The establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 was preceded and followed by systematic expulsion of 80 per cent of the Arab population of what became the state, the destruction of 418 of their villages, to ensure they would not return, and the confiscation of virtually all their land – Jews owned only some 6.6 per cent of Palestine before 1948, but, through the application of various ‘legal’ enactments owned practically all of it within a short time. Of the some 750,000 Arabs expelled in 1948 some 50,000 were Christians, representing 35 per cent of all Christians who lived in Palestine prior to 15 May 1948. For the Palestinians, the Zionist War of Independence was their Nakba (catastrophe). Israel’s colonisation policy after the 1967 war has added to Palestinian disaffection to this day.

Palestinians and neighbouring Arab peoples, of course, have most reason to be aggrieved, but outsiders also have reasons for disaffection. This is particularly true of Christians who, at best, are expected either to support the Zionist conquest, even hailing it to be a miraculous act of God, and a victory for freedom and civilised values, or, at least, to remain silent about Israel’s behaviour. However, Zionists’ failure to ‘come clean’ on their ethnic cleansing imperative, and Israel’s failure to conform to UN Resolutions and an array of Human Rights Protocols are sufficient to shock many.

The ‘canonical’ Zionist version of history, of course, plays down, ignores, explains away, denies, or exonerates Zionists of any responsibility for the destruction of Arab Palestinian life. Even the late Chief Rabbi Jakobivits,a distinguished commentator on other aspects of morality, whose conscience was constantly perturbed by the Arab refugee problem, was quick to assert that ‘we are neither responsible for their being there nor have a solution for their problems’. Again, while Chief Rabbi Sacks recalls with sadness the twenty thousand who died so that Israel should exist, he spares no thought for the Arabs of Palestine and the surrounding states who have paid an even more severe price for the prize of Zionism. Instead, we learn that the Jewish pioneers created farms and forests out of a barren landscape.

A way forward
While Palestine has always been a mosaic transcending ethnic, religious, and national separations – pace the biblical legend’s embrace of the genocide of the indigenous Canaanites – the Zeitgeist since Oslo (1993) has abandoned the presumption of ethnic and political diversity. Imagination, generosity of spirit, courage, and a certain amount of moral thinking are required if Israel-Palestine is to move beyond the all too predictable politics of separation.

Why must the future settle for an arrangement which feeds off the jaded rhetoric of racist and colonialist nineteenth-century Europe? Why should the Jewish people bind itself inexorably to a controlling ideology which predicates hermetically sealed separateness as the utopian solution to neighbourliness? The aspiration to a secular bi-national state in the whole of Palestine, espoused by the PLO until 1988, has now also devolved into the option for separation, with two states side by side.

On the surface it might appear that one was dealing with two deeply-rooted, fundamentally irreconcilable nationalist aspirations. The reality, however, is that each of the nationalisms is of recent origin – the late nineteenth century in the case of Jewish nationalism; and, while the seeds were sown earlier, 1967 in the case of a distinctly Palestinian nationalism. Moreover, the two are not only recourses of desperation, but betray poverty of vision, lack of imagination and moral determination.

Bi-national option
The bi-national option within a unitary state has more to commend it in the long run. The formation of a unitary, secular, non-racial state in Mandated Palestine, with equal rights for both peoples (including returned expulsees), and all religions, as in other democracies, would be a bold solution. To achieve it, the essentially discriminatory base and structure of Zionism would have to be dismantled, and Israelis’ national goals would have to become inclusive. While not satisfying all nationalist or religious aspirations, a unitary state in Palestine beats throwing the Jews into the sea, or throwing the Palestinian Arabs into the desert. Could it ever happen?

James Diamond considered it as unlikely that Israel would disavow or move beyond Zionism as that the USA would renounce democracy or capitalism, or Russia would forsake Marxism or communism – he was writing in 1986.3 Since then, the Berlin Wall has collapsed, South African apartheid has been dismantled, and an agreed settlement in Northern Ireland is almost there. Two separated states is probably the only viable option for the moment, moving perhaps later to a federation of two states with permeable borders, and ultimately to a unified state.

Herzlian Zionism as implemented by Israel since its foundation, and by Ariel Sharon currently, is hardly a moral option for Jewry. Disdain for Zionism’s exclusivist, oppressive, imperialistic and colonialist essence should not be dismissed as an expression of irridentist hatred of either Jews or Judaism. It should be welcomed as pointing to the necessity of making a better moral future.

REFERENCES
1. In my Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 67-102, I trace the metamorphosis of the religious estimation of Political Zionism, from being an anathema, to occupying a position of virtual sacred significance within religious Jewish thinking.

2. See Nur Masalha’s Expulsion of the Palestinians: the Concept of ‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992), his A Land without a People. Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians 1949-96 (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), and his Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion, 1967-2000 (London: Pluto, 2000).

3. James S. Diamond, Homeland or Holy Land? The Canaanite Critique of Israel (Bloomington Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 126-27.

hope this helps vic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article first appeared in Doctrine and Life (July-August 2002), a publication of the Irish Dominicans. Michael Prior CM, of St Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill (University of Surrey), is the author of The Bible and Colonialism: a Moral Critique (Sheffield 1997), Zionism and the State of Israel: a Moral Enquiry (Routledge 1999), and editor of Holy Land Studies: a Multidisciplinary Journal

actually dave it as the united nations that made the declaration that zionism = racism in 1974

but as weve established- world opinion has no bearing when it comes to israel

even though every memeber of the UN did sign the human rights declaration in 1948 and made a resolve to uphold it-

amen to presidents not needing intelligence-

but carter didnt have big daddy warbucks financing him either

Victoria,

You are trying to get me to think and write the way you do but taking a different position. I have no interest in that.

It is not that everything about Carter and his book is wrong. He is simply not as smart and knowledgable as you, he, and many others are sure he is. I am sure he knows a lot about the politics and the negotiations but that does not make him an expert on such factors as history, religions, cultures, and human psychology.

As anyone should know, being elected president is not a certification of intelligence and knowledge. Nor does it guarantee that at the end the president will have obtained great knowledge.

Carter has accused AIPAC of wielding vast power but has not proven it. Asserting something confidently over and over while millions yell "It is so!" does not make it so. And using the word apartheid in a deceitful way to make Israel seem racist but still claim he does not think Israel is racist is poor.

So here we are. You with all the things you are sure are so and I with all the complexity, ambiguity, and animosity I am searching through for glimmers of light in the hope that we will all collectively find a way forward to peace.

as for the reasoning that carter had the advice of many brilliant people- he was also not able to disregard the many powerful people who pushed for that aid to be doubled-

whereas now he is an unemcumbered civilian who has seen things we cant begin to imagine as far as power brokerage and how things are done- clearly he was savvy enough to become president- so it seems to discount him one would have to have very substantial reasons-

now he is free to disseminate his impressions of the system as viewed from the top- id say that would offer a rare insight into the situation-

if his advisors were more brilliant- theyd have been president i guess-

anyway- i have stated a position-

i have offered many objective and NEUTRAL (i.e. governmental) resouces to back up my views.

having an opinion isnt the same as marching with a placard- and its a weak attmept to portray me as some fanatic- ergo- my views- by association with your portrayals- shouldnt be considered-

i state a position-
i back it up-

you state a position in opposition and THEN

you also back it up! this is what ive been waiting for you to do-

so i give more sources and substantiation-

you STILL never back up your original assertion but just summarily dismiss opposing views-
still without substantiation!

its your turn dave to provide something anything to bakc up your assertion

without silly distracting false imagery

ok dave thats substanital-

although i would ask that you discontinue making cartoonish observations about me- such as star wars references and bizarre imagery- let me define myself-

so i havent read this book by carter-
im assuming you have? you are stridently anti-carter in many posts because of this book-

so- in an analytical and logical manner, what in particular do you find fault with in his book?

for instance- i watched both carter and alan dershowitz on cspan speaking about his assertions-

carter spoke about the palestinian issues specifically- i dont find any raicsim in the man- just saw someone sticking up for a voiceless and oppressed people- in the interest of finding peaceful resolution- lack of water for instance-
and the prohibitive check points (as noted below- even resulting in deaths of children) - it is possible to bring into the light problems faced by a people, and real stumbling blocks to the proposed peace process- without condemnatory speech to the other-

dershowitz started his speech with attacks on the person of carter- and sarcastic remarks about him which i think are unnecessary to the debate-
he also preached to the choir, who applauded every point he made no matter what it was-

i have the same problem with any sheeplike endorsement of any issue- i get mightily annoyd when muslims do the same lame behavior)

in the end- i had no idea what it was about the book that dershowitz found fault with- as there were no references to it or deconstruction or analysis-

so youre an analytical guy-

what did carter say that was so defamatory?

what did he state that was questionable?
what were his sources?
was there a comprehensive bibliograhy, an appendix of resources?

what assertions were so unpalatable to you?

like in particular?

ok

Victoria,

Okay. At this point what we have is the semantic equivalent of you marching up and down a street with a placard saying "Stop Funding Israel! Stop AIPAC!"

I see no point to that. You do.

Much prior experience tells me that most people who view things as you do would post here with various variants of "Go Victoria Go." And if I met them in a bar over a beer or a coffee shop, they would tell me how frustrating it is getting the American public to understand.

Here is the thing about past presidents and Carter. Carter says he upped aid to Israel when he was president. As president he had great advice from many brilliant people. I suppose he paid attnetion to some of it. That does not make him an expert on all religions, cultures, and human pyschology. I think he has a tin ear for some of that.

Do you still contend you are not criticizing me personally? One of the problems is that we define things differently.

Whatever the topic, we clearly have different methods, different truth tests, different ways of analyzing things, and different criteria for being sure of something. That is just the way we are. Human beings are different and there is no one right way to be human.

What I do has worked well for me many times in many different situations. I continually fine tune it but am not about to throw it all out and try doing things the way some stompy footed marchers with placards do.

no dave- i didnt miunderstand, nor am i confused.

many of the 'teams' were government sources-

anyway- we already talked about the answer you gave to the original question posted by the blog owners over a month ago-

your tactic is to just go off topic-

if that is what was before my eyes- that was resolved over a month ago!

i find it amazing you dismiss president carter as a born again ex engineer who hasnt spent any time studying this issue!

ok dave- id say youve had a month to come up with a reason, any reason that you support israel without question- and you do dave-

youre reasoning is that you trust the judgement of the leaders of our country-but then go on to dismiss a leader of our country-

with logic?
no
with a reasoned or substanitated response?
no

theres a major flaw in your basic assertion that you support israel because our leaders have good judgement-
and then by your own insertion into the conversation-
bring up a leader who doesnt agree with your preconceived and illogical lack of any point or reasoning process or even addressing from a personal viewpoint-

heres you dave-

i dont have enough information-

me- ok dave heres some government information

you- i dont like it

me - okay whats your opinion?

you- i gave it to you already!

me- where?

you- before!

me- sorry - i dont remember seeing it and ive looked- could you recapitulate?

you- i did already
me- what?

you- i already did but you didnt like it

me-what?

well dave- do you hve any answers to the bunches of questions i asked you AFTER a month ago?

anything?
anywhere?
repost an old one if it exists

im sorry dave - but for a month ive read your responses carefully and responded to each point and -

you just havent given any reason for your support of is funding of israel - or your support

so lets see what circle youll create to distract another focused and pointed query on my part

in case you dont know

what is the reasoning process that you dave marshak used to come to the conclusion that you personally support israel?

what sources did you use?
any?
one?

Victoria,

You seem to have skipped over or misunderstood this:

"You say you can't understand what I mean by referring to a team. I mean all of the people who have written things you expect me to carefully read and respond to in detail."

I should have specified all of the people who oppose Israel. Is that why you are confused?

"Dave- these men have spent decades studying these issues-"

You have moved a level of generality up. I mentioned specific aspects of these issues. And what they say and do does not show deep study of the topics I mentioned.

""Israel has been condemned internationally (the US abstaining) for "excessive use of force," in a "disproportionate reaction" to Palestinian violence. That includes even rare condemnations by the International Committee of the Red Cross, specifically, for attacks on at least 18 Red Cross ambulances (NYT, 4 October). Israel's response is that it is being unfairly singled out for criticism."

That is true. What conclusions can we draw from it? It does not prove the condemnations are based on solid and irrefutable evidence. It does not prove an overall pattern to everything Israel does."

That does not condemn the Red Cross.

"As I have shown, you can mightily criticize Israel and get intelligent responses without spurious charges that you are an anti-semite."

"If you really think nothing I have said is responsive and intelligent, it shows perfectly what I mean when I say opponents of Israel are looking at false generalizations and ignoring what is right in front of them."

You don't know what is right in front of you? The statement above about anti-semitism is just one of many things I have explained which you have flunked and ignored. All of what I said is right in front of you on your computer. If you deem it all evasive garbage, it makes dialog difficult.

"you already HAVE made up yourmind-

your pro-israel- so its not a matter of you not making up your mind-

its a matter of you having no reason that you can give

there are volumes of posts ive supplied here- all uncommented on"

I have given reasons. You grade them all with F for failed. I have written extensive comments. You give them all Fs.

What can I do about that? The way I think and write does not suit you independently of the fact that we disagree about what are facts and what are guesses. The important thing is that we can not agree on a way to discuss things.

another one of my many many queries to you that remain unanswered-

so what is the thing that is right in front ofmy eyes that im not seeing-

if im not seeing it- obviously you have to elaborate and name what precisely it is-

and actually dave- you already HAVE made up yourmind-

your pro-israel- so its not a matter of you not making up your mind-

its a matter of you having no reason that you can give

there are volumes of posts ive supplied here- all uncommented on

so what gives?

whats in front of my eyes?\

if you can specify please as thats a vague generalization that could mean anything

the rest of the article is in on the post in this blog march 21 146 pm

B4. Violates US Law and abuses human rights

* The Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of the United States, which provides guidelines for the eligibility of certain countries to purchase US-made weapons and military equipment, states in section 116 that "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." However, Israeli army engages daily in degrading and inhumane treatments towards Palestinians, such as prolonged detention without charges, strip searches at checkpoints, beatings, torture, and home demolitions. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country that legalizes torture.
* Similarly, section 4 of the Arms Export control Act prevents the US government from selling defense articles to countries that abuse their use for non-self-defense purposes. In 2001, the US State Department described the actions of Israeli army against Palestinians as an "excessive use of force," referring to the use of live ammunition when soldiers were not in a pending danger. This clearly shows that the US does not agree with the way these weapons are being used against Palestinians, yet the US military aid to Israel continues consistently as agreed between both countries.

Notice the 'useof excessive force' when soldiers were not in pending danger

also- these are the violations of THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES
that weve (well i did- you as always mutely disregard) discussed

so dave- i fully expect-not a response to anything carefully reposted and researched-
(what can you possibly say?)

but some distracting off topic comment

Maybe I was too harsh about AIPAC but my point is that when we support one side without any criticism we ultimately hurt who we intend to help...the message this post is about Israel and not their neighbors who have been self destructive with violence. But, after awhile like earlier posts the peoples at war start resembling each other in a tit for tat existence. It is important that the Jewish people who stand up fo rtheir beautiful values have a voice and not be labeled negatively.

LARRY- i might not agree with you, but at least you have your views.

Dave- these men have spent decades studying these issues-
suddenly carter is an ex-engineer?
how about ex-president?

noam chomsky is neither discredited nor so easily dismissed- not agreeing with the painful facts presented is not equivalent to being discredit-

as stated before- i welcome any substantiated disproof-

by team do you mean the many government figue and ive provided?

well, wheres your team dave?

id say that the fact that there are volumes of people writing and studying these issues rather validates than invalidates the points being made.

and of course you go off topic but that what you do-

so you dismiss the RED CROSS? what dave? that just makes no sense-

the challenge still stands dave
(of course you didnt adress anything here, did you- i couldnt find the story on the palestininas but it has no point anyway-

make a summation- a point- why print a story out of nowhere?
there are 1000s of stories-

if you want to just print anecdotal stories dave we can do that too

well, i knew you would follow your pattern-

arbitrarily dismiss the sources with no basis or source cited

the challenge remains disprove anything

"Israel has been condemned internationally (the US abstaining) for "excessive use of force," in a "disproportionate reaction" to Palestinian violence. That includes even rare condemnations by the International Committee of the Red Cross, specifically, for attacks on at least 18 Red Cross ambulances (NYT, 4 October). Israel's response is that it is being unfairly singled out for criticism."

That is true. What conclusions can we draw from it? It does not prove the condemnations are based on solid and irrefutable evidence. It does not prove an overall pattern to everything Israel does.

This is from a recent report by the ICRC:

"In the Gaza Strip, clashes between Palestinian factions erupted again on 1 February. By the time relative calm returned three days later, at least 28 persons were dead, including two women and four children, and more than 240 had been injured. Since 25 January, the fighting has left more than 60 dead and over 300 injured. Many victims were bystanders not involved in the violence.

It became difficult for ambulances to move around the Gaza Strip, as they had to pass through dozens of roadblocks and new checkpoints to deliver patients. Hospitals were short of blood and appealed in the mosques for donors. Although hospitals can still handle the injured, their stocks of certain emergency drugs and disposables are running low.

During the clashes in Gaza City on 3 and 4 February, armed factions fought from inside Shifa hospital, the main hospital in the Gaza Strip, hindering the movement of ambulances, patients and staff. A number of incidents have disrupted the work of emergency medical services in the Gaza Strip over the past few days."

Further from Chomsky:

"Official Israeli doctrine allows "the full use of weapons against anyone who endangers lives and especially at anyone who shoots at our forces or at Israelis" (Israeli military legal adviser Daniel Reisner, FT, 6 October)."

Chomsky seems to think that is unreasonable and evil. I do not. Nor do I think it is unusual.

Why does almost everyone, who stomps around with banners filled with anti-Israel slogans, view Chomsky and Carter as experts on the complex issues in the Middle East? One is a linguist with a huge amount of experience giving lectures to people and demonstrating. One is a born again Christian who is a nuclear engineer and executive. Neither has spent much time studying the underlying issues of religion, history, and culture.

They are nice men and they are very smart. They write well and sell many books. They speak well and energize meetings. But none of that requires deep study of the situation and none of that requires creative thinking about the issues. In fact some of what they are energetically doing gets in the way of the creative, intuitive processes of the human brain.

"all the extremely pointed and focused questions ive asked-

you have managed to never have a stated reason for why you support israel-"

Perhaps it is just that. You ask questions and you have determined what are acceptable answers. You present me with articles and expect me to carefully read them.

You say you can't understand what I mean by referring to a team. I mean all of the people who have written things you expect me to carefully read and respond to in detail.

When I do not do that the way you want, you ignore what I wrote as distracting and unresponsive. That is the way a professor teaches a class. It is not dialog. Dialog is not your setting the terms of discussion and grading me on how well my responses fit your rules.

I think the whole left, Carter, and the Presbyterians have been approaching these very complex issues and the heartbreaking things that have been happening just as you do for many years. And they just keep keeping on as if next year will be different than all of the previous years.

Things are not so. The universe is not arranged to give folks like Jimmy Carter everything they are sure they should get. Nor will much huffing, puffing, and demonstrating make it so. It is the enormous power of the creative mind that makes a difference and the creative mind follows no rules,

Victoria,

"im trying to figure out why you keep coming here-"

Are you actually trying to drive me away? Why?

"i have strong substantial facts and figures to back that conviction up with-"

You think that, Chomsky thinks that, the organizations you trust think that. Our government thinks that. Dershowitz thinks that. Israel thinks that. AIPAC thinks that.

Then you talk as if I am not dialoging properly because I have not made up my mind about all of that and do not post with the huge sense of certainty you do.

Meanwhile I am still trying to understand how all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds develop such a huge sense of certainty about many very complex issues where there is much that is ambiguous.

Peter,
Hey, what's with the AIPAC accusation. I'm not at all affiliated. Does this mean someone who stands up for Israel must be a lobbyist?
I stand for Israel because it is a country worth standing for.
It has bravely fought several wars against armies and terrorists hell bent on wiping them off the map.
Israel is a nation of builders and thinkers. It is where technology thrives. Major American chip and cellphone manufacturers have factories there.
And here's the saddest point. Israel has the ability to provide great technological assisstance to its neighbors but they don't want it. They want to eliminate Israel. Have you heard the Iranian President and supporter of Hezzbollah lately. Well, guess what? That "ain't gonna happen." And America should provide more aid to assure Israel's ability to survive and thrive.

And stop already with the human rights abuse arguments. On the contrary. Jews have been the most sympathetic to the cause of the underdog. They were at the forefront of America's civil rights movement. They are some of the worlds largest and most generous philanthopists. So you need not lecture on that issue. And for Victoria to quote Noam Chomsky shows she is blinded by her need to "prop up" her biased and fallacious arguments with so called experts who have been exposed and discredited. It would be like quoting David Duke to support a racial argument.
Israel would take down its checkpoints and barriers tomorrow if there were civilized neighbors willing to live and work in peaceful co-existance. Until you can admit to this simple fact, you will never see this conflict in its proper context.
Of course all of this means nothing to you (and Victoria ) if you don't really believe Israel has a right to exist. That's really what this is all about with you two, isn't it.

you know dave i started out a month ago engaging you on a reasonable level-

but the most incredible thing is - after all the extremely pointed and focused questions ive asked-

you have managed to never have a stated reason for why you support israel-

it is interesting to come tosee just how youll distract and never address one point directly-

youve said repeatedly that you dont have enough information-
thats your favorite non-answer

how can you have a position on something as you so clearly do-

youve stated you are pro-israel

but you havent given one single coherent answer

probably now youll say you already gave an answer in the past that somehow i missed or didnt understand-

without just saying what that answer is!!!

so you have a position on the issue-

but not enough information to give a reason for your position

so that means- you made a decision to support israel with no information (or 'not enough')

i am interested to see how you manage to avoid any substantive statement today-

likely youll just repost what i say and dismiss each statement without proof as if thats an answer!!!

if you feel te source is in question dave-

then disprove one fact-

just one- its a challenge, a direct one

or if you cannot- then just give us another distraction completely off topic!

heres a converaton starter you can reply to dave-

it is a direct answer to your questioning my statement that israel is unique in its exemption from american laws which apply to every other country that we give aid to-

this is from the jewish man noam chomsky

Israel has been condemned internationally (the US abstaining) for "excessive use of force," in a "disproportionate reaction" to Palestinian violence. That includes even rare condemnations by the International Committee of the Red Cross, specifically, for attacks on at least 18 Red Cross ambulances (NYT, 4 October). Israel's response is that it is being unfairly singled out for criticism. The response is entirely accurate. Israel is employing official US doctrine, known here as "the Powell doctrine," though it is of far more ancient vintage, tracing back centuries: Use massive force in response to any perceived threat. Official Israeli doctrine allows "the full use of weapons against anyone who endangers lives and especially at anyone who shoots at our forces or at Israelis" (Israeli military legal adviser Daniel Reisner, FT, 6 October). Full use of force by a modern army includes tanks, helicopter gunships, sharpshooters aiming at civilians (often children), etc. US weapons sales "do not carry a stipulation that the weapons can't be used against civilians," a Pentagon official said; he "acknowledged however that anti-tank missiles and attack helicopters are not traditionally considered tools for crowd control" -- except by those powerful enough to get away with it, under the protective wings of the reigning superpower. "We cannot second-guess an Israeli commander who calls in a Cobra (helicopter) gunship because his troops are under attack," another US official said (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 3 October). Accordingly, such killing machines must be provided in an unceasing flow.

well dave- as beleaguered as you are, you continue to show up-

im trying to figure out why you keep coming here-

i have strong opinions about zionism and isralei funding- but i have strong substantial facts and figures to back that conviction up with-

you HAVE stated your support of israel in every way-

so ive been asking what your strong facts and figures are-

your answer is you dont know enough-

and that no one could possibly study this issue at length enought to have a cogent opinion-

but you still have an opinion-

your entire purpose seems to be distracting oonversations-

as ive said repeatedly ad nauseum-
i am more than willing to listen with an open mind to YOUR thoughts- and that doesnt include your trust in our leaders-

but if thats all you have, i accept it- but you credibility suffers from that

i am one person with a computer

although youve implied i have a 'team' you compliment my aptitude with that impliation

its only me
asking you

what does dave tink about the issue of israel and its human rights abuses- militant occupation- funding by the usa- etc-

and for all i know your children already are living in israel as ive asked that in the past with no answer

so since you present no logical or even honest emotional reason for your support- its either self interest or emotionally tied

"Ah the Larry and Dave show Live from AIPAC"

Let us think about what that says. I have no clue who Larry is. I think he posted once. I have no connection to AIPAC and don't get mailings from them. Yet here I am viewed as an instance of an AIPAC drone not a separate person with my own ideas.

Things I have written are hence addressed as if they are quotes, or were fed to me, or have no content.

These are ways to deflect ideas which folks are not comfortable with.

It seems some people are absolutely certain they have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I am convinced no one has that with a situation this complex.

"does Israel recognize the rights of all Palestinians to exist in a free country where they have the right to self determination, water, resources, no check points, the ability to buy homes and move about freely."

Sure. They have to create it themselves just as others have done before them. Making constant war on a powerful neighbor has been getting in their way.

"It is your intransigent dibble that empowers this conflict to continue."

Well, that is an interesting way to view all that I have written. Clearly you are not open to new ideas or diverse points of view. The Palestinians truly believe they will eventually get the US to close down Israel. And who is helping them along with that belief?

"If you love Israel as much Larry move there."

You own the US and want me to move out?

"the density and poverty of Gaza is a direct result of some of Israels' policies."

Israel forces people to live there or keeps them from taking over Israel and kicking the Jews out?

They lack industry and in many cases industriousness. They are often destructive.

"So why not change, perspective for all peoples sake."

That is what both sides say. Adopt my view. You have not even read most of what I have written. You do not think you need to. As you see it I am simply repeating propaganda. Yet it seems to me I am the one who is dealing with scripts and slogans.

Ah the Larry and Dave show Live from AIPAC playing at a theater near you....does Israel recognize the rights of all Palestinians to exist in a free country where they have the right to self determination, water, resources, no check points, the ability to buy homes and move about freely. It is your intransigent dibble that empowers this conflict to continue. If you love Israel as much Larry move there. I think that there has been wrong on both sides of the WALL, oops (security fences) and the density and poverty of Gaza is a direct result of some of Israels' policies. Even Peace Now (who I support) acknowledges the truth. The point is without a critical examination of Israel and Palestine's problems we will continue to have this tit for tat conversation and it reflects the way the two sides see each other in the first place. So why not change, perspective for all peoples sake.

o btw- this is wrong-

""these are the laws that apply to everyone in the world"

No laws apply to everyone in the world. Nations have treaty obligations which they interpret differently. There is no peaceful way to force them to comply with them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
yes dave- the laws i was referring to are the human rights laws that the united states enforces IN ITS DEALINGS WITH EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD

except israel of course- so your following point- is actually my point
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our government makes rules and administers them following procedures it has established.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yes exactly- the laws of engagement and human rights that the united states uses as its base for whom it deal with
(except israel which is exempt) why? hmm

so what is the thng right in front ofmy eyes im not seeing?
if compellingly put i might agree!

ok dave- youve come perilously close to making a statement here-

If you really think nothing I have said is responsive and intelligent, it shows perfectly what I mean when I say opponents of Israel are looking at false generalizations and ignoring what is right in front of them.

ok dave- im a stated opponent of the funding by the united states of israel-

tell me- in particular-

what is right in front of me?

spell it out!

As I have shown, you can mightily criticize Israel and get intelligent responses without spurious charges that you are an anti-semite.

that was never my question- and answered a month ago- but ok dave- although youve bandied that erm in my direction when youve not had a response- if you say so-

If you really think nothing I have said is responsive and intelligent, it shows perfectly what I mean when I say opponents of Israel are looking at false generalizations and ignoring what is right in front of them.

- again a reaction to what others say- not a stated opinion

Human beings run complex democracies such as the United States and Israel. There is no one man or one group rule. Groups are not monolithic with everyone thinking the same. The various governmental entitities are very complex and very diverse in thought and process.

another reaction to what others say

Israel had war declared on it in 1948 and has never been at peace with its neighbors. Sherman said it well when he said "War is Hell." It puts people in a position where someone will die and they must try to protect some at the expense of others.

still quoting someone else- not an opinion or statement either

Uncoordinated groups with no clear leadership structure can not be dealt with as you can deal with a well organized government.

what uncoordinated groups dave?
the palestinian democratically elected government?

People who face Israel bravely but are not brave in resisting armed and violent bands are using their bravery unwisely.

palestinians use their bravery unwisely-
pretty general - cant say its a point of any kind-
just finger pointing and not very specidfic at that

so your statement or point your making is---

you have alot of reactions to how others handle the issue but no real original thoughts yourself?
no formed opinion?
no reasoned analysis?

is it possible you dont have a point at all?

"these are the laws that apply to everyone in the world"

No laws apply to everyone in the world. Nations have treaty obligations which they interpret differently. There is no peaceful way to force them to comply with them.

Our government makes rules and administers them following procedures it has established. And no power on Earth can force it to do what it does not want to do.

I have a number of points:

As I have shown, you can mightily criticize Israel and get intelligent responses without spurious charges that you are an anti-semite.

If you really think nothing I have said is responsive and intelligent, it shows perfectly what I mean when I say opponents of Israel are looking at false generalizations and ignoring what is right in front of them.

Human beings run complex democracies such as the United States and Israel. There is no one man or one group rule. Groups are not monolithic with everyone thinking the same. The various governmental entitities are very complex and very diverse in thought and process.

Israel had war declared on it in 1948 and has never been at peace with its neighbors. Sherman said it well when he said "War is Hell." It puts people in a position where someone will die and they must try to protect some at the expense of others.

Uncoordinated groups with no clear leadership structure can not be dealt with as you can deal with a well organized government.

People who face Israel bravely but are not brave in resisting armed and violent bands are using their bravery unwisely.

This is not the most important hot spot in the World:

+ Iraq and Iran are far more serious. India and Pakistan fight each other over Kashmir and other issues and each has nuclear missiles.

+ North Korea is threatening to lob nuclear missiles over Japan and generally alarming even China and Russia.

+ Africa has a whole collection of disasters.

+ The indigenous populations in Latin America are losing their territories and their identities.

Despite plaintive cries, no one is wiping Arab culture and religion off the map or trying to.

Sadly, some people were killed today by a bursting of an overburdened sewage dam in northern Gaza. What does Hamas say? Did we try to fix it? No. Did we call in engineers to evaluate and recommend solutions? No. Did we ask friendly Arab states to help us fiix the infrastructure? No.
What they say is that the embargo on aid by the West, pending Hamas' simple recognition of Israel's RIGHT TO EXIST, as well as their adherence to prior agreements, was the reason for this disaster!
Want aid? Stop the terrorism.
Victoria, it's time you statrted speaking the truth instead of your politiical, anti-Israeli rants.

this entire exchange with you reminds me of a scene form monty python when michael palin goes into an office to have an "argument"

john cleese sets the timer for 5 minutes and then michael makes a statement where john replies, 'no it isnt' and for 5 minutes they argue about the fact that blanket negation does not constitute an argument-
then the bell goes off signifying the end and michael states- you just say no to everything i said- i want my money back- to which john replies-
'no i didnt'

the discussion is and has been israel-

do you have a point or a statement on israel?

dave do you have any point you are trying to make?
youre entire raison d'etre seems to futiley try to debunk what i say through some kind of opinion

youre just repeating what i say and denying it carte blanche

perhaps you could validate one point out of all of these with one post one link one substantial point?

what is your point?

no dave- these are the laws that apply to everyone in the world- so of course israel is not mentioned- it also says that no country will receive over 3 million dollars a year in military aid-

israel has receieved billions every year in militaery aid alone 9the figures have been provided in a previous post)

the only reason you can claim it is opinion of the world court is that the united states will not address the grievances- ignores them- and no one is big enough to force them to answer the accusations

if it went to court it would not be opinion
but the united states knows that and will not go to court- not because theyre right- if they thought they were right they'd want to clear their name internationally, right?

if youre innocent you want your day in court to prove your innoncence-

their response is not the repsonse of the innoncent

so technically as long as they can stay out of world court, yes- you could dismiss it as the opinion of the world-

by refusing to answet the charges they are proving their complicity and guilt rather than innocence-

so dave- instead of just dismissing blithely and without sources of any kind what i post-

possibly you have an actual statement of some kind?
some rebuttal based on governmental sources?
any sources?

i notice you have neglected to address the bulk of my well reasoned and supported statements

focusing on subjective opinons rather than any of the facts i have given
now i addressed each point youve made specifically

care to respond in the same manner more in keeping with a debate instead of just arguing?

"i have in no way shown i do not trust the world court-
another pointless distraction"

You do. Our government looks at what it does case by case.

"i never showed that we dont trust the world court- that is your idea-"

You showed we ignored what they decided about what we did in Nicaragua. That shows lack of trust.

"i have shown that we consider ourselves unrestrained and above the laws that all others in the world respect- with flagrant disregard for world opinion-"

We are so viewed by some. That is not the way most Americans look at things.

"that is not mistrust- that is the actions of a bully who doesnt care what others think becuase theyll just beat up anyone who disagrees-"

You say the whole world disagrees with us. We do not beat up the whole world. We in fact provide monetary aid and other help to many countries.

"there is no merit- no ethics- no morals or superiority in ignoring substantiated accusations of abuse
we are just big enough that we can ignore world opinion"

The question is substantiated by whom. We have many bright people who can check things out and we trust them. And if the world does not like what we are doing, we do not just pull an Iran and thumb our noses at the world.

here is george bush's statement on the un from a government site

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

President George W. Bush
Inaugural Speech
January 20, 2005

Promoting freedom and democracy and protecting human rights around the world are central to U.S. foreign policy. The values captured in the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and in other global and regional commitments are consistent with the values upon which the United States was founded centuries ago. The United States supports those persons who long to live in freedom and under democratic governments that protect universally accepted human rights. The United States uses a wide range of tools to advance a freedom agenda, including bilateral diplomacy, multilateral engagement, foreign assistance, reporting and public outreach, and economic sanctions. The United States is committed to working with democratic partners, international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, and engaged citizens to support those seeking freedom.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, headed by Assistant Secretary Barry F. Lowenkron, leads the U.S. efforts to promote democracy, protect human rights and international religious freedom, and advance labor rights globally.

he states that the values put forth by the un declaration of human rights are consonant with american values

The prior post was mine.

"the whole world opinion is wrong by your reasoning"

Opinion is not fact. There is no way to measure world opinion. The American people do not decide how we will vote in the UN. The president does. And every other country works the same way.

"No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights."

You can see the report which does not say this about Israel.

"However, Israeli army engages daily in degrading and inhumane treatments towards Palestinians, such as prolonged detention without charges, strip searches at checkpoints, beatings, torture, and home demolitions. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country that legalizes torture."

We do not run our government based on facts groups like Amnesty International have established. We check them out and evaluate them ourselves. We have many career civil servants who do this work.

"* Similarly, section 4 of the Arms Export control Act prevents the US government from selling defense articles to countries that abuse their use for non-self-defense purposes. In 2001, the US State Department described the actions of Israeli army against Palestinians as an "excessive use of force," referring to the use of live ammunition when soldiers were not in a pending danger. This clearly shows that the US does not agree with the way these weapons are being used against Palestinians, yet the US military aid to Israel continues consistently as agreed between both countries."

The State Department said this how and where? It is an element to consider but does not itself decide anything as the results have shown.

i have in no way shown i do not trust the world court-
another pointless distraction

so dave- read what ive posted before commenting
i went to alot of effort to prove my points with objective governmemt websites

i never showed that we dont trust the world court- that is your idea-

i have shown that we consider ourselves unrestrained and above the laws that all others in the world respect- with flagrant disregard for world opinion- that is not mistrust- that is the actions of a bully who doesnt care what others think becuase theyll just beat up anyone who disagrees-

there is no merit- no ethics- no morals or superiority in ignoring substantiated accusations of abuse
we are just big enough that we can ignore world opinion

or i guess we thought we were until our own shores were breached

it is a basic moral principle that all be held to the same standard

serbia was just convicted by the world court for allowing genocide to take place under its watch

so dave- while ive offered loads of substantial links and sources backing up everything ive said-

where are yours?

what matters is world opinion does

Victoria,

The State Department has country reports at the site you linked to. The reports are very detailed. The report for Egypt seems to say it is much worse than Israel. Do you think these reports support your contention that Israel is a major abuser of human rights and none of our other aid recepients are at all? Or perhaps you could clarify your position about this.

ok dave-the whole world opinion is wrong by your reasoning-

B4. Violates US Law and abuses human rights

* The Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of the United States, which provides guidelines for the eligibility of certain countries to purchase US-made weapons and military equipment, states in section 116 that "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." However, Israeli army engages daily in degrading and inhumane treatments towards Palestinians, such as prolonged detention without charges, strip searches at checkpoints, beatings, torture, and home demolitions. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country that legalizes torture.
* Similarly, section 4 of the Arms Export control Act prevents the US government from selling defense articles to countries that abuse their use for non-self-defense purposes. In 2001, the US State Department described the actions of Israeli army against Palestinians as an "excessive use of force," referring to the use of live ammunition when soldiers were not in a pending danger. This clearly shows that the US does not agree with the way these weapons are being used against Palestinians, yet the US military aid to Israel continues consistently as agreed between both countries.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/cor/byagency/dos2314.htm

it took some research, but here are the laws of the united states governmemt which israels in direct violation of

"Here are the 65 ignored resolutions brought against israel by the united nations that you questioned the existence of"

You said there were 65. I did not question the number. I did not know you viewed them as evidence of human rights violations. They were political decisions. They did not follow a process which establishes what is true. Diplomats were told by their leaders how to vote and they did so.

You have shown that we do not trust the World Court. So what they think will have no bearing on our decisions. They don't trust us and we do not trust them. Judges on the court are appointed by a political process.

government link identifying policy

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/

dave writes-
First:

What are the violations you are talking about specifically?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A:the 65 resloutions
~~~~~~~~
Second:
How do you know this?
A: The United Nations has documented and made resolutions against these actions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Third:

We do things with many countries. How do you know Israel is the only one with violations?
A: ill provide substantial government based sources
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you talking about violations proven by a government agency or allegations?

A: Yes, absolutely.

Here are the 65 ignored resolutions brought against israel by the united nations that you questioned the existence of

Here is a list of UN resolutions that Israel has not complied. But the situation is far worse than would at first appear, it involves the serious distortion of the official Security Council record by the profligate use by the United States of its veto power. (See Table)

Israel’s, defiance goes back to its very beginnings. This collection of resolutions criticizing Israel is unmatched by the record of any other nation.

A list of UN Resolutions against "Israel"

* 1955-1992:
* * Resolution 106: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for Gaza raid".
* * Resolution 111: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people".
* * Resolution 127: " . . . 'recommends' Israel suspends it's 'no-man's zone' in Jerusalem".
* * Resolution 162: " . . . 'urges' Israel to comply with UN decisions".
* * Resolution 171: " . . . determines flagrant violations' by Israel in its attack on Syria".
* * Resolution 228: " . . . 'censures' Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control".
* * Resolution 237: " . . . 'urges' Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees".
* * Resolution 248: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan".
* * Resolution 250: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem".
* * Resolution 251: " . . . 'deeply deplores' Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250".
* * Resolution 252: " . . . 'declares invalid' Israel's acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital".
* * Resolution 256: " . . . 'condemns' Israeli raids on Jordan as 'flagrant violation".
* * Resolution 259: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation".
* * Resolution 262: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for attack on Beirut airport".
* * Resolution 265: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan".
* * Resolution 267: " . . . 'censures' Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem".
* *Resolution 270: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon".
* * Resolution 271: " . . . 'condemns' Israel's failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem".
* * Resolution 279: " . . . 'demands' withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon".
* * Resolution 280: " . . . 'condemns' Israeli's attacks against Lebanon".
* * Resolution 285: " . . . 'demands' immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon".
* * Resolution 298: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's changing of the status of Jerusalem".
* * Resolution 313: " . . . 'demands' that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon".
* * Resolution 316: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon".
* * Resolution 317: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon".
* * Resolution 332: " . . . 'condemns' Israel's repeated attacks against Lebanon".
* * Resolution 337: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for violating Lebanon's sovereignty".
* * Resolution 347: " . . . 'condemns' Israeli attacks on Lebanon".
* * Resolution 425: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon".
* * Resolution 427: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon.
* * Resolution 444: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces".
* * Resolution 446: " . . . 'determines' that Israeli settlements are a 'serious
* obstruction' to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention".
* * Resolution 450: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon".
* * Resolution 452: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories".
* * Resolution 465: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's settlements and asks all member
* states not to assist Israel's settlements program".
* * Resolution 467: " . . . 'strongly deplores' Israel's military intervention in Lebanon".
* * Resolution 468: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of
* two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return".
* * Resolution 469: " . . . 'strongly deplores' Israel's failure to observe the
* council's order not to deport Palestinians".
* * Resolution 471: " . . . 'expresses deep concern' at Israel's failure to abide
* by the Fourth Geneva Convention".
* * Resolution 476: " . . . 'reiterates' that Israel's claim to Jerusalem are 'null and void'".
* * Resolution 478: " . . . 'censures (Israel) in the strongest terms' for its
* claim to Jerusalem in its 'Basic Law'".
* * Resolution 484: " . . . 'declares it imperative' that Israel re-admit two deported
* Palestinian mayors".
* * Resolution 487: " . . . 'strongly condemns' Israel for its attack on Iraq's
* nuclear facility".
* * Resolution 497: " . . . 'decides' that Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan
* Heights is 'null and void' and demands that Israel rescinds its decision forthwith".
* * Resolution 498: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon".
* * Resolution 501: " . . . 'calls' on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops".
* * Resolution 509: " . . . 'demands' that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon".
* * Resolution 515: " . . . 'demands' that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and
* allow food supplies to be brought in".
* * Resolution 517: " . . . 'censures' Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions
* and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon".
* * Resolution 518: " . . . 'demands' that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon".
* * Resolution 520: " . . . 'condemns' Israel's attack into West Beirut".
* * Resolution 573: " . . . 'condemns' Israel 'vigorously' for bombing Tunisia
* in attack on PLO headquarters.
* * Resolution 587: " . . . 'takes note' of previous calls on Israel to withdraw
* its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw".
* * Resolution 592: " . . . 'strongly deplores' the killing of Palestinian students
* at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops".
* * Resolution 605: " . . . 'strongly deplores' Israel's policies and practices
* denying the human rights of Palestinians.
* * Resolution 607: " . . . 'calls' on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly
* requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
* * Resolution 608: " . . . 'deeply regrets' that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians".
* * Resolution 636: " . . . 'deeply regrets' Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians.
* * Resolution 641: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's continuing deportation of Palestinians.
* * Resolution 672: " . . . 'condemns' Israel for violence against Palestinians
* at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
* * Resolution 673: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's refusal to cooperate with the United
* Nations.
* * Resolution 681: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's resumption of the deportation of
* Palestinians.
* * Resolution 694: " . . . 'deplores' Israel's deportation of Palestinians and
* calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return.
* * Resolution 726: " . . . 'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of Palestinians.
* * Resolution 799: ". . . 'strongly condemns' Israel's deportation of 413 Palestinians
* and calls for there immediate return.

k, here are the facts of when the united states was accused by the world court of terrorist activities well within your guidelines of what constitutes terrorism

: Suppose you want to bring a president of the U.S. to justice. They’re guilty of horrendous terrorist acts. There’s a way to do it. In fact, there are precedents. Nicaragua in the 1980s was subjected to violent assault by the U.S. Tens of thousands of people died. The country was substantially destroyed, it may never recover. The effects on the country are much more severe even than the tragedies in New York the other day. They didn’t respond by setting off bombs in Washington. They went to the World Court, which issued a judgment in their favor condemning the U.S. for what it called “unlawful use of force,” which means international terrorism, ordering the U.S. to desist and pay substantial reparations. The U.S. dismissed the court judgment with contempt, responding with an immediate escalation of the attack. So Nicaragua then went to the Security Council, which passed a resolution calling on states to observe international law. The U.S. vetoed it. They went to the General Assembly, where they got a similar resolution that passed near–unanimously, which the U.S. and Israel opposed two years in a row (joined once by El Salvador). That’s the way a state should proceed. If Nicaragua had been powerful enough, it could have set up another criminal court. Those are the measures the U.S. could pursue, and nobody’s going to block it. That’s what they’re being asked to do by people throughout the region, including their allies.

Slaughtering 10s of 1000s of civilians and decimating their country is consdiered terrorism

the US simply dismissed it (backed by israel)
dismissal isnt a defense, is it?

Dave, I don't know who you are but I have to commend your patient responses in the face of Victoria's agenda driven rants. Not only does she try and support her unsupportable arguments with what she calls"pastes", which are mostly previously debunked statistics and theories, but she quotes Thomas Stauffer. What a joke.

Israel is one of the most humane nations on earth and no rant or U.N. resolution by hateful groups who would love to see it's annhialation will discredit it. Israel's actions, which admittedly can be tough, are in response to relentless efforts to destabilize and defeat it by it's Arab neighbors.
Keep up the good work.

"whats wrong with using shrill as a metaphor?
actually it wasnt a metaphor but a derogatory observation-

theres nothing wrong with metaphors-"

Since I can only read what you have written, shrill is clearly a metaphor. I have explained what I meant by it.

"so dave- you insinuated there were other names or insults i gave you- if youd be so kind as to post them i could apologize for each one individually-"

There you do what you blame me for doing. I said that the respect you insist you continually show mw is questionable and you change that to my insisting you have insulted me. That is also a true false outlook. I was insulted or I was not. I am addressing something that is somewhere on the spectrum between those.

"to reiterate- you were well aware that i have pointed out in complete context the fact that israel is in direct violation of U.S. codes regarding aid given to those in violation of human rigts abuses-

65 from the united nations-
all unanswered and ignored"

That is not specifics. It is a pattern you perceive.

"no other country in the world receives aid that breaks our own codes oflaw"

And you base that on what finding by which body?

"i suggest you take your complaint of how christians view american jews up with the christians-"

I have made some comments about folk like Jimmy Carter and the Presbyterians that are pertinent to the issues we discuss. To the extent you rely on their being right about how they view Israel, they are relevant to what you say.

"as for the question- is american a better country/

well, i wouldnt say the 60s but since the 70s there has been an environmental movement, a civil rights movement, awareness of the global community and our place in it, and a general activist movement covering a wide range of interests-"

The question was has the world become a more peaceful place since the 60s? The peace movement and peace protests became extremely active in the 60s.

"as for the united states- it is the only country deemed a terrorist nation by the security commision of the world court-

it is the greatest hypocrisy that the only nation on the planet that has been identified as a terrorist country is oonducting a 'war on terror'"

The United States is far too successful, rich and powerful to suit many countries tastes. What you cite is an example of why the US does not accept the world court's jurisdiction. A court is supposed to hear evidence from both sides and decide cases only on hard evidence. It is not supposed to march around deeming things. So the US is worse than any African nation, Russia, China, Serbia, and so on? Can't you see how ridiculous that is?

There is also the common problem of competing definitions. If you define police and soldiers killing some people while trying to protect others as terror, you get results many people strongly disagree with. Most people view terror as intentionally conducting operations whose only pupose is to kill as many civilians as possible as horribly and visibly as possible,

"for instance- it wasnt until the intifada that israel saw its first suicied bomber-

for the preceding 34 years under military occupation the palestinians were remarkably passive-"

Suicide bombings was at one point a new tactic. There are plenty of other ways to kill people and people were being killed sometimes horrifically. Do you remember what they did in Munich? How can you view things such as that as "remarkably passive?"

"you state things in absolutes dave-
please stop restating my moderate comments in absolutist misleading terms-"

I am quoting you. You are again talking about a pattern you see without giving specifics.

"no one said the leading abuser in the world dave- that is your own value judgement-"

That has been said. I think one of the things you quoted or sites you pointed to said it. Suppose people only think Israel is in the top 10 percent? I would simply have to give some more examples of countries that are much worse. Note also that some of these reports weigh complaints equally with proven violations and things like waiting a long time in line equally with being intentionally dismembered while you are alive.

"there are certain laws governing who the united states gives foreign aid to-

there are human rights statues established by the american goverment determining this-

israel is the only country that we give aid to that are in violation of our own codes-"

First:

What are the violations you are talking about specifically?

Second:

How do you know this?

Third:

We do things with many countries. How do you know Israel is the only one with violations?

Fourth:

Are you talking about violations proven by a government agency or allegations?

Fifth:

Why has the aggressive hunting for any fault we get from the media and our two party system never created a fuss?

"now i never called you a name dave- i did say one time that you were using a weasel maneuver to avoid a straight answer-

now if that hurt your feelings or you thought i was calling you a weasel indirectly- then i publicly apologize-"

You have not hurt my feelings and there is no need to apologize. Since you brought the subject of mutual respect up, I am suggesting that a neutral observer might question the amount of respect some of your posts show to me.

Now we get to the issue about the problems you have with patterns in my posts.

That to me is symbolic of the way this issue is addressed by both sides. People talk about patterns involving a lot of data. They each see different patterns. They never break the patterns into individual data elements and see if they can get at least an inch or so further in agreeing about that particular data item. Deconstructing the pattern is what I have suggested we could do with aid to Israel. Mention specific aid items and we could talk about each of them. 30% or trillions or $300 billion, or numbers of deaths are things you put on boards you wave around at demonstrations and sound bites you give in one minute interviews. You can't dialog about them. They are too general.

see dave- to me this signifies respect-

you ask a question, i make an effort to reply in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, addressing each question individually and in a very straightforward manner-

if you feel that i havent shown you respect in my answers- id say the act of validating each question itself by response is enough.

as ive copied these laws in the past - ill repost them again-= if you like-

there are certain laws governing who the united states gives foreign aid to-

there are human rights statues established by the american goverment determining this-

israel is the only country that we give aid to that are in violation of our own codes-

so in that respect israel should be held to the same standards as everyone else-

i would say this is a valid moral formula for human beings in general-

now i never called you a name dave- i did say one time that you were using a weasel maneuver to avoid a straight answer-

now if that hurt your feelings or you thought i was calling you a weasel indirectly- then i publicly apologize-

id like to continue with the dialogue-

for instance- it wasnt until the intifada that israel saw its first sui