Readers’ Responses to Our Question (189)

Today’s Post Global GPB

http://www.secure-x-001.net/SecureGeo/Issue/SecureObservationComments.asp

And the topic of discussion is...

“Will Bush rescue the Annapolis accord as he visits the Middle East for essentially the first time?”

And the answer provided by the author is...

No Annapolis rescue...just another photo op to enable radical Islamists.

“Most analysts believe President Bush won't start crafting constructive policies now, in his last year, when he has had no vision for the region for 7 years. What most thought leaders are asking is whether the President has any real priority beyond an attempt to reach for some type of better legacy than he has now. Few believe he does and that will make it difficult for this trip to achieve much if anything other than photo ops. Unfortunately, it provides the opportunity for US opponents, particularly radical Islamists, to achieve much as they direct anger and rage toward the most unpopular US President in memory.”

I concur. Ata boy W!

carlotta gall is one of my favorite journalists

WITH RESPECT TO THE ASSASSINATION OF BENAZIR BHUTTO

This is a glimpse of the world’s future if the Zionist so called “State of Israel” and its number one ally the USA don’t wise up and vacate the Middle East.

That’s right Victoria, they can’t blame this one on the general Muslim population.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/yossi_melman/2007/12/bhutto_conspiracy_theories_wil/all_comments.html

We may find out, however, that the culprit is the Islamist fundamentalists (Al Qaeda and the Taliban) who are enabled by the foolish greed of the colonial USA and Israel.

Certainly Musharraf is one of those with the most to gain. He can now postpone elections indefinitely and hold onto his power, although he may have quite a revolt on his hands if he does so.

On the other hand, Bhutto was a strong ally of the US and an outspoken opponent of the Islamic fundamentalists. That is the kiss of death in this region of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/world/asia/28pakistan.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

“In October, Ms. Bhutto survived another deadly suicide attack in the southern city of Karachi on the day she returned from years of self-imposed exile abroad to contest the parliamentary elections. Ms. Bhutto blamed extremist Islamic groups who she said wanted to take over the country for that attack, which narrowly missed her but killed 134 people. But she also complained that the government had taken insufficient steps to safeguard her parade…

She was openly critical of Mr. Musharraf’s ineffectiveness at dealing with Islamic militants and welcomed American involvement…

The assassination comes just days after Mr. Musharraf lifted a state of emergency in the country, which he had used to suspend the Constitution and arrest thousands of political opponents, and which he said he had imposed in part because of terrorist threats by extremists in Pakistan…”

So this is how my crystal ball has it. We just took another step along the path to WW III. The Islamist fundamentalists (Al Qaeda and the Taliban) hold all the cards. Musharraf may or may not be making a serious effort to rein them in. He may be playing live and let live as they build their strength in NW Pakistan and continue to weaken Afghanistan.

The Zionist invader in Palestine keeps the entire Middle East inflamed at both them and the USA for supporting them. Of course our preemptive attack on Iraq and continued occupation of Afghanistan just adds fuel to the flames.

China, India and Pakistan’s thirst for Middle East oil makes them natural allies of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the other Arabian Gulf oil states. They will be eager to supply whatever these countries need in the way of precision guided land Attack Cruise Missiles (LACM) like the US Tomahawk. These are precision, Global Position System (GPS) satellite guided, low flying cruise missiles that hug the earth and can be programmed to attack Israel from multiple directions. Israel will never know what hit them. These will not be like the thousands of ballistic Katyusha rockets fired from Southern Lebanon, which mostly land in the olive orchards and sage brush fields. These missiles will each have a high rise building or other high value target and street number programmed in them like our Tomahawk attacks on Baghdad in 1991 and 2003.

Our thirst for oil and 10 Trillion dollar national debt, with much of it owed to China, puts us in a very weak strategic position. China could bankrupt us at will by flooding the market with our worthless paper IOUs. That’s why the US dollar has lost ~33% of its value relative to the Euro, which is on its way to becoming the world standard currency. The US dollar will soon be known as the US Peso.

Israel only produces ~1% of its required oil from its own oil wells, and must import 99%, 90% from Russia. Russia is anything but a reliable ally and is known to have used its natural gas supplied to Eastern Europe as a political tool in the past.

So standby for action the so called Zionist “State of Israel” and its number one ally the USA. We live in interesting times.

Yes, and you're paying for it. You are as guilty as the worst of the savage Israelis.

As long as AMericans don't do something...as long as there is the media, and AIPAC...and that nasty little mayor of New York, who fully expects to buy the Us Presidency--this will go on.

And you are paying for it. You are guilty.

Yes, and you're paying for it. You are as guilty as the worst of the savage Israelis.

As long as AMericans don't do something...as long as there is the media, and AIPAC...and that nasty little mayor of New York, who fully expects to buy the Us Presidency--this will go on.

And you are paying for it. You are guilty.

Here is and interesting post by JDLEDELL @ December 27, 2007 7:26 AM from Yossi Melmans’s blog:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/yossi_melman/2007/12/hopeful_for_bethlehem/all_comments.html

Yossi - Pay no attention to the extremists on both sides that populate this blog. I am extremely pessimistic about the chances for peace. I have dozens of relatives living in West Bank settlements and I have been going to Israel, at least annually, for more than 40 years. I have seen it all, the good, the bad and the ugly of this situation.

It's easy to put the blame on the Palestinians for they have made numerous mistakes which have significantly aggravated the problem. Suicide bombers, rockets and armed resistance are just a few of the well known errors. However, Jewish mistakes are less well known. The settlement enterprise is the primary problem. My sister and her family were one of the first to move from Haifa to the West Bank after the 67 war. Settlements were planned with three express goals: first, dividing up the west bank with Jews so that a viable Palestinian state could never emerge. Second, to surround Jerusalem with Jewish settlements so that Palestinians could never use it as their capital (to that end, in 1967 Israel tripled the size of Jerusalem's historical dimensions). Third, to build on top of and control the West Bank aquifers.

I’m sure you are aware that Israel is not really trying to forge a peace agreement with the Palestinians. The settlement game is still being played. Some of my settler relatives are being recruited to seed a new settlement in Atarot, for a 11,000 person city on the doorstep of Ramallah. Others are being recruited to seed Giv’at Yael, a 20,000 person settlement near Bethlehem. Plans have been developed to build another new settlement, Shimo’n Hatsedeeq , near Abu Dis.

Eventually the world will catch on to Israel’s word games. Like Jerusalem's expanded boundries, Ma’ale Adumim's municipal boundries extend all the way to Jericho, empty land that can accomodate hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Ariel city boundries are proposed to expand to encompass all the small surrounding settlements that will make Ariel geographically 4 times larger, on the theory Ariel will be allowed to stay under a peace agreement. These kind of games will not lead to “land for peace” or “peace for peace”.

Look at the maps the settlers pass around, you will see four “reservations” for Palestinians with Israel taking all the rest, including the Jordan Valley. This is the game plan and I don’t think any Israeli politician is strong enough to stop it or slow it down. There is no such thing as the status quo, if peace is delayed Israeli settlement expansion will surely prevent the birth of a viable Palestinian state.

This is a recipe for disaster as internal and external Palestinians demand citizenship and a bi-national state. Yossi, our mutual dream of a Jewish homeland will disappear as it has so many times in the past few thousand years. I, for one, find that to be an unforgivable mistake. However, an even worse outcome is possible, the loss of the jewish soul. I have seen IDF and settler depravity first hand in the West Bank. I have two nephews serving in the IDF and they are thugs, who have already lost their souls to hatred, along with numerous of my relatives. I cherish my Jewish faith and the wisdom of the Torah but I see too many Israelis abandoning this wisdom in their greed and visceral hatred for “others”. If we lose our soul, land will not matter.

Hi Victoria,

Thank you, what a charming holiday greeting and the best to you and yours.

Merry Chritmas.

HI RICK- I HOPE YOUR HOLIDAYS WERE FULL OF FRUIT

PRO-ISRAEL FORCES WANT TO RE-OPEN A PIPELINE FROM IRAQ TO HAIFA, ISRAEL

The fact that American-Israelis in our government are endeavoring to use the war on Iraq as a way for Israel to gain control over oil in the Middle East is rarely reported in the mainstream pro-Israel US media with your average American readership, however it has been reported in Jewish newspapers with Jewish readership and in Israeli papers.

A case in point is the fact that American-Israelis in our government want to "re-open" or re-instate, the pipeline that used to exist between Iraq and Palestine, which is now specifically Haifa, Israel. When Israel was created in 1948, that pipeline was re-directed by Iraq to Syria. Now pro-Israel forces are actively seeking to cut off the pipeline to Syria and re-direct it to Haifa, Israel. For more information on this, please do a Google-search using such keywords such as "Iraq oil pipeline to Haifa, Israel" and see what you come up with.

Just as Israel's connection to the war on Iraq has been kept out of the US mainstream media (as you may have noticed, Israel has not even been mentioned as one of our "allies" in the war on Iraq), this choice nugget of information with regards to Israel's ambition to get a basically free supply of Iraqi oil is also kept out of view for vast American public consumption.

i dont think the importance of water can be understated in the palestinian/israel issue

whiuke the world is nauseated by triumphant stories of the israelis "making the desert bloom",apparently no one ever thinks to notcie that it is a decision of making ones front yard a more important priority than another human beings quality of life.

every israeli has 4 TIMES the amount of water allotted to them than every palesitinian-

and as you noted palestinians are subsisting on HALF of what is necessary by health standards top maintain life and health-

which means, israelis are greedily sucking up twice thew amount of what is needed to maintian life and health-

when one looks at the maps drawn to distribute land- it is around water sources, and depriving palestinians access to water that these boundaries are artifically imposed-

ever wonder why the boundary lines are such squiggly and incoherent messes?

it is drawn around water access (for the israeli benefit, naturally)

i gues the israelis decided that telling people they were being pushed into the sea sounded alarming enough after thay actually DID IT TO 35,000 PALESTINIANS

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Haifa/Haifa/

The mass majority of Haifa's Palestinian population, numbering at least 35,000, were pushed into the sea. Similarly, Jaffa's population, numbering at least 50,000, suffered the same fate on May 13th,1948. Click here to view a map that illustrates refugees' migration routes.

Via boats, many Palestinian refugees landed in Sour (Tyre), Sayda, and Beirut Lebanon, and some boats managed to land in Acre City. It's very sad that some of the people who landed in Acre were ethnically cleansed again few weeks later.

Ironically, often Zionists accuse the Arabs of plotting to push the Jews into the sea!

http://www.palestineremembered.com/index.html

this site has a great search engine

Hi Victoria,

Yes, that is very interesting indeed. There will be very little weeping in the world when the racist, terrorist, war criminal, so called “State of Israel” expires, and hopefully her demise is not far away.

Here is an article from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization:

http://www.btselem.org/english/Water/Without_Running_Water.asp

“Israel's policy regarding water supply in the West Bank is illegal and discriminates on racial grounds. It flagrantly breaches international law which requires Israel to ensure proper living conditions for the local population and to respect the Palestinians' human rights, including the right to receive a sufficient quantity of water to meet their basic needs.”

Even Israel’s own human rights organization considers them to be racist, illegal and “discriminates on racial grounds”. Israel hogs 80% of the regions water supply to keep their swimming pools full and lawns green, while leaving the Palestinians less than half the amount considered necessary of minimum health requirements by the WHO and USAID organizations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More from B’Tselem on International Law relative to water rights:

http://www.btselem.org/english/Water/International_Law.asp

International law on water

“The water resources in the Occupied Territories were integrated into the legal and bureaucratic system of Israel, severely limiting the ability of Palestinians to develop those resources…

Article 55 of the Hague Regulations limits the right of occupying states to utilize the water sources of occupied territory. The use is limited to military needs and may not exceed past use. Use of groundwater of the Occupied Territories in the settlements does not meet these criteria and therefore breaches article 55…

Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibits an occupying state from discriminating between residents of occupied territory. The quantity of water supplied to the settlements is vastly larger than that which is supplied to the Palestinians. Similarly, the regularity of supply is much greater in the settlements. This discrimination is especially blatant during the summer months when the supply to Palestinians in some areas of the West Bank is reduced in order to meet the increased demand for water in the settlements receiving their water from the same pipelines…

Under international law, the main principle for division of shared water between states is the principle of equitable and reasonable use. This principle is based on the limited-sovereignty doctrine, which provides that, because all parts of the drainage basins of watercourses are hydrologically interdependent, states are not allowed to utilize water located in their territory as they wish, but must take into account the other states that share the resource.

This principle does not state a precise formula quantifying the rights of each state sharing an international watercourse. Rather, it lists the factors to be considered in negotiations between the states to determine the division. Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses enumerates seven of these factors:

1. The natural features of the shared watercourse (geographic, climatic, hydrologic, and the like);

2. The social and economic needs of the watercourse states;

3. The population dependent on the watercourse in each watercourse state;

4. The effects of the use of the watercourses in one watercourse state on other watercourse states;

5. Existing and potential uses of the watercourse;

Conservation, protection, and development of the water resources of the watercourse and the costs of measures taken to that effect;

The availability of alternatives to a particular planned or existing use.

Taking into account the components of the principle of equitable and reasonable use, examination of the current division of water between Israel and the Palestinians leads to the conclusion that this division violates Palestinian rights and contravenes international water law.

THIS WEEK AT WAR WILL DOBSON FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE-
transcript of show

FOREMAN: Wow. Just amazing. Dear Osama, we're breaking up. Another one of your headlines. What does that mean?

DOBSON: That's right. In September, a very prominent radical cleric in Saudi Arabia denounced Osama Bin Laden. This is important because this is a man who once mentored Osama Bin Laden. So this is a very important shift because it suggests that there's real fissures, differences of opinion even in the corners of radical Islam and a place like Saudi Arabia.

FOREMAN: When you look at things like the awakening movement in Iraq, do you see that as being related to this?

DOBSON: Well, it's clear right now that there is a war within Islam of ideas going on right now. And so this, we may look back at this as being a turning point where people began to ask questions. And this is important because this is a real blow to Osama Bin Laden's ideology and following.
***************************************
FOREMAN: A very controversial idea is your next headline here. AMERICAN JEWS TURN AWAY FROM ISRAEL. What do you mean?

DOBSON: Well, as we know, the U.S. foreign policy is made up by many different lobbies and one of them that's often credited that's being particularly powerful is the Israel lobby. Well, right now in America, a new study that really was just completely overlooked, it appears that though Americans, young American Jews, are beginning to feel less of an attachment to Israel.

In a survey that was done, young American Jews, 48% under 35 said they would not consider it a personal tragedy if Israel was destroyed. That's compared to 77% of those 65 and older. Likewise, 54% of young American Jews said that they felt no - they were even uncomfortable with the notion of a Jewish state compared again to 81% of those 65 or older. So what's clearly there is a shift, a generational shift going on in the Jewish community in America today.

FOREMAN: Well, that must cause enormous angst among the older Jewish community. So many of whom have memories of World War II and who feel like Israel was so hard-won to the young people saying you must understand your heritage.

DOBSON: That's exactly right. I mean, clearly what we're seeing and the authors of the report said one, this is a by-product of intermarriage between faiths. People are feeling less of an attachment to the homeland. And it's also a little bit of distance from history. They don't remember the holocaust as being the personal experience that their grandparents do. And so clearly, it's causing a weakening among Jews in America of seeing their jewishness as a collective identity.

INTERESTING, YES?

EID AL-ADHA MUBARAK ALL

Here is an open letter to my friend Allan from another site:

Alan,

Concerning your ridiculous claim that the Jews “may have” purchased 95% of the land of the so called “State of Israel” legally, here is an interesting article from Middle East Quarterly that claims that the true number is 16.4%. So I stand corrected, all Israeli Jews may not be land thieves; only 83.6% of them are:

http://www.meforum.org/article/370

What do you think about them as a source? I’m sure that they are not as unbiased as The Jewish Virtual Library, but they claim to be an honest source of information. Here is what they say about themselves:

“Since its founding in 1994, the Middle East Quarterly has become America's most authoritative journal of Middle Eastern affairs. Policymakers, opinion-makers, academics, and journalists turn first to the Quarterly, for in-depth analysis of the rapidly-changing landscape of the world's most volatile region. The Quarterly publishes groundbreaking studies, exclusive interviews, insightful commentary, and hard-hitting reviews that tackle the entire range of contemporary concerns – from politics to economics to culture, across a region that stretches from Morocco to Afghanistan. The Quarterly, founded by Daniel Pipes and edited by Michael Rubin, appears in a print edition, and is available in full-text (except the current issue) on this website.

The Quarterly welcomes submissions of original articles, and will consider pre-publication of chapters from forthcoming books. The Quarterly specializes in timely and expeditious publication of articles that impact on today's critical issues.”

[I would say that they are about as unreliable as The Jewish Virtual Library given the pro-Israeli slant on the article that follows; nevertheless it will prove useful for our purposes. It will show that in 1901, 8.7% of the current land area of the “State of Israel” had been purchased by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). More than 70% of the remainder was public land vested in the British Mandatory Authority (Meaning that it was owned by the people, and the vast majority of the people were Palestinians).

With the establishment of the “State of Israel” in 1948, the new government inherited the state-owned lands formerly in the possession of British Mandatory authority as well as property abandoned by Arab refugees. The situation today is that 80.4% of the land is owned by the government, 13.1% is owned by the JNF (These lands were never sold, either to Jews or Arabs, but instead were leased on a long—term basis for kibbutzim and other forms of Jewish settlement), and only 6.5% is evenly divided between Arab and Jewish owners. So the 13.1% of land owned by the JNF plus 3.25% privately owned by Jews amounts to a total of 16.4% of the land of the current “State of Israel” that was actually purchased by the Jews; a far sight from your 95% number.]

An interesting article in today’s WP:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301470_pf.html

Churchill's Other Alliance
Why the British leader bucked the anti-Semitism of his time.

Reviewed by Glenn Frankel

Sunday, December 16, 2007; BW04

CHURCHILL AND THE JEWS

A Lifelong Friendship

By Martin Gilbert

Henry Holt. 352 pp. $30

"Even Winston had a fault," Gen. Edward Louis Spears, a dear friend of Winston Churchill, once told historian Martin Gilbert. "He was too fond of Jews."...

Churchill's profound admiration for the Jews, which was not shared by many of his closest political colleagues, was all the more amazing because it survived the rise of Bolshevism, which Churchill abhorred and which he believed was dominated, intellectually and politically, by men and women of Jewish origin. It even survived the turbulent years during and after World War II when Zionist extremists conducted a campaign of political murder against British officials, policemen and soldiers. That campaign reached its nadir with the 1944 assassination in Cairo of Lord Moyne, Britain's top colonial administrator in the region and one of Churchill's closest friends, and the 1946 bombing of British administration offices at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 people died...

Why did the great man shower his affection on a people that could be, by his own reckoning, so cantankerous and problematic? It was, Gilbert writes, partly because Churchill saw Jewish ethics as the foundation stone for Western moral teachings... [Codswallop!]

It's also the case that Churchill had little use for Muslims... [A true anti-Semite; i.e. Arab hater.]

Churchill was often accused by political opponents and anti-Semites of being in the pocket of wealthy Jews...

Lord Alfred Douglas, the poet and former lover of playwright Oscar Wilde, alleged that Churchill accepted bribes from Jewish financiers during World War I to manipulate wartime information for their financial advantage while he was secretary of the Royal Navy. Douglas was convicted of criminal libel and sentenced to six months in prison. [Let that be a lesson to you, it never pays to speak truth to power.]

The whole issue of Israel , the very existence, is one which in reality helps the mostly autocratic middle east muslim dominated regimes than anyone else.
If we are to look at the last 100 or so years this becomes very clear.
Why didnt the whole Arab world do anything regarding the refugee camps? Why does the Arab world accept the state of Jordan ? This was also a creation of the so called IMPERIALISTIC powers namely Great Britain.
The namely MUSLIM palestianians ( cause we realy cannot say that Palestine was a muslim country /state from time immemorial because MULSIM faith is not as ancient as ZIONISM or CHRISTIANITY) right from the time Israel as a nation was estabished has been used by the ARAB political class to ensure that thier Home issues were kept at the back burner and the so caled issue of palestianians was always in the forefront and kept burninbg so that predominantly illeterate or semi illeterate population in these middle eastern countries had a cause . This immensly helped the political class in keeping thier regimes intact.
This has also helped the MUSLIM religious groups and IMAMS to spread thier power and influence.

Victoria,

Here is an article in today’s Times that you may enjoy if you haven’t seen it.

Muslims Mark Hajj's Spiritual High Point

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Saudi-Hajj.html?pagewanted=print

Peace.

Scanning the newspapers this morning I see that Paris conferees have pledged $7.4 Billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority, saying that an infusion of cash would help the peace process begun by the United States last month in Annapolis, Md.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121700210.html

“But some delegates said that pumping money into the West Bank and Gaza Strip would not lead to long-term economic growth or political moderation as long as Israel continued expanding Jewish settlements and imposing a regime of checkpoints and closures that was strangling the Palestinian economy...

"Economic development is the best guarantee of lasting peace and long-term security for Israel," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the conference host...

But it was unclear how much of the $7.4 billion pledged Monday would go to Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, a radical Islamic group whose forces expelled the Palestinian Authority from the strip in June.

Events that followed the Nov. 27 Annapolis conference contributed to Palestinian resentment here and in the territories leading up to the Paris meeting. A week after both sides pledged to adhere to the U.S.-backed "road map" for peace -- a plan launched in 2003 that calls for Israel to stop settlement activities and for Palestinians to disarm militant groups and boost security -- Israel announced the construction of more than 300 homes on occupied land on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

"I'll be eager to implement all our commitments under the road map, and I expect the Israeli side to do the same, comprehensively, and without excuses from our side or theirs," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the delegates. "I expect them to stop all settlement activities, without exceptions."

There is a fat chance that the Zionists will let up on their expansionist settlements and strangle hold on the Palestinian economy. They will prefer to keep their West Bank settlements, hog 80% of the water supply to keep their lawns green and swimming pools full, while denying the Palestinian natives the right to drill wells; even though both the UN and USA agree that the Palestinians are being deprived the minimum amount of water to maintain health.

Some people cannot be lived with; they must be expelled once again from the Middle East.

Hey Victoria,

Thanks for the news. Darn, I missed my favorite politician. If I'd known that...nah, I'd still have gone to work anyway.

Stay well.

of course i never DID answer that question on bosnia, did i?

soory bout that tom-

rick- this made me think of you-
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071217-2.html

bush in fredricksburg today-

Tom,

Thanks for the kind words. You are a gentleman and a scholar. It’s always a pleasure.

But let’s not get too maudlin!

Rick and Victoria

Thanks for the excellent discussions on the problems of the Middle East. I learned more from these discussions than the previous year on this site. Keep up the good work...

Victoria, I apologize for my behavior while discussing Bosnia with you. I was way out of line (too much time on this site, I guess). Bosnia was most certainly a tragedy.

Tom

but he did enter the mosque, and with armed troops,
and conveniently, it led to his being propelled inot the public eye to his benefit

so there is that

Here’s a good example of how AIPAC is not the only source of Israeli influence that misled us into the disastrous preemptive invasion of Iraq and continues to stoke our world wide War on Islam:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/opinion/12dowd.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

December 12, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist
The Dream Is Dead

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

“The man crowned by Tommy Franks as “the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet” just made the dumbest [expletive] speech on the planet.

Doug Feith, the former Rummy gofer who drove the neocon plan to get us into Iraq, and then dawdled without a plan as Iraq crashed into chaos, was the headliner at a reunion meeting of the wooly-headed hawks Monday night at the American Enterprise Institute.

The room was packed as the former No. 3 at the Pentagon, previewing his upcoming book, “War and Decision,” conceded that the case could be made that “mistakes were made.” His former boss, Paul Wolfowitz, and the former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle sat supportively in the front row.”...

“In “Fiasco,” Tom Ricks wrote that Feith’s Pentagon office was dubbed the “black hole” of policy by generals watching him drop the ball...

Jay Garner, America’s first viceroy in Iraq, deemed him “incredibly dangerous” and said his “electrons aren’t connected.”

Feith’s disdain for diplomacy and his credo that weakness invites aggression were shaped, Ricks reported, by personal history: “Like Wolfowitz, Feith came from a family devastated by the Holocaust. His father lost both parents, three brothers, and four sisters to the Nazis.”...

What’s the answer to bin Laden? According to Feith, it was an attack on an unrelated dictator. He oversaw the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, whose mission was to amp up links between Saddam and Al Qaeda...

It defies reason, but there are still some who think the chuckleheads who orchestrated the Iraq misadventure have wisdom to impart.

The Pentagon neocons dumped Condi Rice out of the loop. Yet, according to Newsweek’s Mike Isikoff, Condi has now offered Wolfie a job. It wasn’t enough that he trashed Iraq and the World Bank. (He’s still larking around town with Shaha, the sweetheart he gave the sweetheart deal to.)
Condi wants Wolfie to advise her on nuclear proliferation and W.M.D. as part of a State Department panel that has access to highly classified intelligence.

Once you’ve helped distort W.M.D. intelligence to trick the country into war, shouldn’t you be banned for life from ever having another top-level government post concerning W.M.D.?”

Victoria

GlobalSecurity.org

“…Additionally, the Israeli government received some assurances from the Palestinian government that Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount would not cause violence…”

Wikipedia

“…When Sharon expressed interest in visiting the Temple Mount, Barak ordered GSS chief Ami Ayalon to approach Jibril Rajoub with a special request to facilitate a smooth and friendly visit [...] Rajoub promised it would be smooth as long as Sharon would refrain from entering any of the mosques or praying publicly [...] Just to be on the safe side, Barak personally approached Arafat and once again got assurances that Sharon's visit would be smooth as long as he did not attempt to enter the Holy Mosques…”

Palestine History.com

“…Sharon's impending visit was officially announced and approved in advance with many Palestinian officials including Arafat himself, though prior to it some people on both sides protested, because of his controversial political stance….”

Sharon’s visit was not a great idea, and provocative, but some have written that the intifada was pre planned by Arafat - well in advance of the peace talks. Regardless, the war resulted from the failure of the peace talks in which Arafat rejected the Israeli offer without a counter offer…

Thanks for the post. I only hope that this set of talks leads to some kind of resolution of the issues.

Here is an article that shows what we are up against. It shows how Barack Obama executed his abrupt flip flop on Palestinian support when he began his campaign for a US Senate seat from Illinois:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml

How Barack Obama learned to love Israel

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2007

...“In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”…

…“But Obama's gradual shift into the AIPAC camp had begun as early as 2002 as he planned his move from small time Illinois politics to the national scene. In 2003, Forward reported on how he had "been courting the pro-Israel constituency." He co-sponsored an amendment to the Illinois Pension Code allowing the state of Illinois to lend money to the Israeli government. Among his early backers was Penny Pritzker -- now his national campaign finance chair -- scion of the liberal but staunchly Zionist family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain. (The Hyatt Regency hotel on Mount Scopus was built on land forcibly expropriated from Palestinian owners after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967). He has also appointed several prominent pro-Israel advisors.”…

…“If disappointing, given his historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans, Obama's about-face is not surprising. He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power.”…

“Only if enough people know what Obama and his competitors stand for, and organize to compel them to pay attention to their concerns can there be any hope of altering the disastrous course of US policy in the Middle East. It is at best a very long-term project that cannot substitute for support for the growing campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions needed to hold Israel accountable for its escalating violence and solidifying apartheid.”

It is clear to me that our only hope for an honest government is campaign reform with total taxpayer financing of political campaigns. All lobbying must be totally banned.

hi tom-
actually the intifada was started when sharon stormed the mosque on a friday when the people were at prayer with, conincidentally- 1000 troops.

people at prayer tom- that is what started it-
worked well politically for sharon too, didnt it?

i was talking about intentions-
the israeli people apparently preceived killing palestinians at prayer as exactly the kind of "strong' militant leadership they wanted.

the numbers i gave (despite your objections- prove them wrong then)

really dramatically illustrate the intentions on both sides.

iraeli deaths cut in half to a mere 23

the CHILDREN killed were 6 times that!

the use of civilians as human shields actually came to the fore when ISRAELI soldiers used them- not palestinians

http://www.imemc.org/article/51965

just today- TODAY Palestinian medical sources reported on Tuesday that six Palestinians have been killed and 19 others wounded, during an Israeli army ground offensive on southern Gaza Strip today.

what about yesterday?
the day before?
year before? years before???

Sorry, I gave you the wrong link in the previous post.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11302007/transcript2.html

Ken Krimmer,

Thanks for the fascinating link. I find it very interesting indeed. When are we going to figure out how to give the American people as much pull with the Congress as AIPAC has?

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/2007/11/israel_lobby_too_powerful/comments.html#comments

Here is the part I like best:

BILL MOYERS: But in this country the right wing, the radicals, if you will, you call them radicals, they are radicals. They're organized. They have the money. They have this alliance with the Republican Party. And AIPAC and others make it impossible for Democrats to have the kind of conversation that you're having here. I mean, you don't hear this debate in the Democratic debates, do you?

M.J. ROSENBERG: You don't. And that's-- it's so amazing that no one asks the candidates about Israel and Palestine in debates, ever.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

M.J. ROSENBERG: I think the reason they don't ask is that they know what the candidates are going to say is, "I love Israel. I stand with Israel. Israel is great." End of the discussion.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

M.J. ROSENBERG: Because they are intimidated...

BILL MOYERS: By?

M.J. ROSENBERG: By the lobby which basically does not want a debate on this issue. But, you know, I don't blame the lobby. I blame the politicians. They're not going to lose their seats in Congress. They're not going to lose the presidency because they endorsed a two-state solution. The-- it is not losing that they're afraid of. They're afraid of getting any static from a couple of right wing donors...

BILL MOYERS: --I mean, you have seen the candidates for Congress lose because of opposition from supporters of Israel.

M.J. ROSENBERG: You know what? I think that the only people say that candidates for Congress have lost because of that opposition is, one, the lobby itself to tout its own power. And those candidates who lost for other reasons and want someone to blame. No, I can go over those case by case--

BILL MOYERS: Yeah, but-- but in your newsletter you keep talking about the power of the lobby to intimidate the discussion among Democrats in particular...

BILL MOYERS: --talk about Barney Frank, who's a good liberal Democrat but never discusses this. You talk about Nancy Pelosi writes a letter to Bush before the Annapolis conference and says the only solution can be one that deals primarily with what Palestinians are doing and has no reciprocity from Israel.

M.J. ROSENBERG: Oh, absolutely. The-- they have a real chilling effect on debate...

BILL MOYERS: More so than CUFI, don't they?

M.J. ROSENBERG: Oh, much more. CUFI doesn't really-- I don't see them as really counting on this issue. No, they have a much more-- I go up to the Hill all the time, talk to members of Congress. And what they always are say is, "I'm with you 100 percent. I'm for the two-state solution. I know it's the best thing for America and it's the best thing for Israel. But you really don't want me to go out and say that in public." So they say, like, in my heart I agree with you. But that's not good enough.

RON SIDER: I think that MJ's basically right on that. And I'm sorry about that. I wish they did. I wish they had the political courage to-- in fact, say what they think. Because I mean, it's really momentous in terms of the U.S. and the history of the world and our foreign policy. Because 1.3 billion Muslims in the world tend to judge the U.S. and see it through the lens of Israel-Palestine. And all those Muslims perceive the U.S. as very one-sided. If we would solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, that would remove one major problem in the huge dangerous relationship between the U.S. with its large Christian majority and the Muslim world.

M.J. ROSENBERG: And, you know, on top of it, you have in the Jewish community some 70 percent of our community supports the two-state solution, supports the peace process, supports what Bush tried to do this week in Annapolis. But under our current system, it isn't majorities that matter, it's special interest groups based in Washington. It's a problem with our system right now and how it works...

Sen Lieberman should move to Israel and join their government... he's a zionist goon.

Extremism in any form is poisonous. Zionists are no different than Jihadists or Christian zealots... ready to kill for their beliefs... what kind of God approves of killng?

If anyone had the chance to watch Bill Moyers interviews they can here:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11302007/profile2.html

WATCH AND LEARN

If anyone had the chance to watch Bill Moyers interviews they can here:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11302007/profile2.html

WATCH AND LEARN

“Just look at the casualty figures posted by Victoria. Maybe it’s in the best interest of the Palestinians to attempt some diplomacy...”

I Googled “Death before Dishonor” looking for some good historical references to this fundamental issue and got a punk rock band, a movie, and a musical album soundtrack to the movie.

Anyway, I think we all get the idea. For many proud people, death is preferable to subjugation to an oppressive, apartheid, tyrannical regime.

Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” comes to mind.

You know, a funny thing is that I cannot fully access this blog from my home computer. That is why the “Test” message is posted on Saturday morning. Apparently I can transmit but not receive. I transmitted the test message but never saw it posted. From my home computer, I can see all posts up to my post @ November 28, 2007 9:19 AM and nothing beyond. Que pasa?

Good morning Rick

"...Targeting civilians is not only O.K., it is absolutely necessary, just as is the case in Iraq. If they don’t like being targeted, then they should vacate the country..."

Just look at the casualty figures posted by Victoria. Maybe its in the best interest of the Palestinians to attempt some diplomacy...

Test.

If we are comparing lobbies among these folks, you bet-- I do not see Lebanon or Palestine asking the USA to put themselves second but for AIPAC and even the ADL trickery, YOU bet I do. Personally I do not like the NEW WLD Order stuff, the Zionist claims for ownership, the destruction of people and land in a brutal manner. Your question.. do I think AIPAC and Equals have too much influence? Just follow the money we give Israel and look-up the word "turn-around" as it applies to orders of goods and think. Bought and paid for.. and in reality we are paying for it. confidentialsources/theradioavenger

Hello Tom,

“Since we have been discussing this issue, I have not seen even once where you have criticized Palestinian tactics. Do you believe that targeting civilians is OK? That the goals of Hamas (elected leader of Palestine) are consistent with peace in the ME? That rocket fire into Israel is justified especially while peace talks are being conducted?”

Although not addressed to me, I will volunteer my opinion anyway.

The Israeli citizens are actually the foot soldiers in this death struggle for the land of Palestine. They invaded and are squatting on the land illegally and are thus legitimate targets of the asymmetrical warfare that is being conducted by the Palestinians against the overwhelming military might of the US and Israel. Targeting civilians is not only O.K., it is absolutely necessary, just as is the case in Iraq. If they don’t like being targeted, then they should vacate the country.

Likewise, the goals of Hamas are the only legitimate peace in Israel and rocket fire into Israel is justified; i.e. the abolishment of the illegitimate “State of Israel”.

The ongoing peace talks are not legitimate. The appeaser/collaborator Abbas does not represent the Palestinian people. Hamas represents the democratically elected sovereign government of Palestine.

Victoria

Let me start with your most important point - the high amount of Palestinian versus Israeli deaths.
As you mentioned in your post, half of Palestinian deaths have been civilians (many children) and half are enemy combatants (involved in terrorist activity).

1. During the 2000 (2000-2005) intifada, over 1000 Israelis were killed primarily from terrorist attacks. Civilians were the main target of Palestinian terrorist (read - not freedom fighters). Israel built a wall to prevent terrorist from entering Israel and the wall has been very effective - reducing by about 90%potential attacks against Israeli citizens. So in part, at least, the low amount of deaths to Israelis reflects greater security and NOT that the Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have not been trying. In fact, there have been many FAILED attempts to kill Israelis, but their attacks were blunted.

2. As you know, it is illegal to target civilians under the Geneva convention, however, in the course of war, the international community recognizes that civilians will be killed while targeting enemy combatants. Israel does not target civilians, and, in fact, Israel issues an apology when a rocket goes astray and kills some civilians, while Palestinian terrorist specifically target women, old men and children at supermarkets, coffee shops, bookstores, schools and so on. Ever heard them issue an apology? Targeting civilians as opposed to killing civilians in the course of war are not morally or legally equivalent acts of violence. NO MORAL EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINIAN TACTICS.

3. The Palestinian method of war is neither legal or moral. On July 10th, 2007, the Jerusalem Post reported “…army lookouts had spotted the four militants approaching the border fence in an armored jeep marked with “TV” and “PRESS” insignia, “thought they were foreign reporters, so did not shoot at them.” The cell then broke through a gate in the barrier and took over an Israeli military post, which was empty at the time…” Palestinian journalist objected because they knew that this action put them at risk. Likewise, Children and women (some pregnant) have been used in terrorist activities by the Palestinians including their use as suicide bombers. This puts all Palestinian women and children at greater risk. In addition, terrorist have used ambulances to transport weapons or attack, and hidden in schools, mosques, hospitals and churches. Bomb factories have been located next to schools. It is well documented that Palestinian terrorist use civilian populations for as a shield which is a violation of international law. Its no wonder that civilians are “accidentally” killed on occasion. Palestinian terrorist are a walking war crime.

4. Israel will retaliate when Islamic Jihad shoots rockets into Israel. Just about everyday, Palestinian terrorist fire rockets and mortars at Israeli population centers even as Abbas meets with Israel to try to reach an agreement on peace. The goal of the terrorist is to evoke an invasion by Israel into Gaza where hundreds of civilians will be killed (and, of course, to undermine the peace process). They hope (sacrifice civilians) to bring world-wide condemnation to Israel through the “impartial” UN.

Hamas believes in the one state solution - void of any Jews (Jerusalem Post - reported also by the BBC?):

“…Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that "Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews.”…”

How do you reach peace with Hamas the ELECTED leader of the Palestinians? Does Israel overreact? Absolutely. Far too many people are being killed in this endless conflict. Israel has planted numerous illegal settlements in the West Bank, but the greater problem lies with the Palestinians unwillingness to negotiate (for example, the 2000 peace talks) to reach an agreement and their continued attacks against Israel. Furthermore, Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas could care less about the occupation of the West Bank since they are interested in the grand prize of greater Israel.

“…wikipedia is a questionable source becuase it is written by individual people, and their subjective opinions…”

“…so now i looked at the wikipedia post-
the first 2 paragraphs, who knows who wrote them?
they are opinion…”

“…look at the bbc story and stats i provided below…”

What gives you the misguided idea that the BBC is a neutral source of information or that their reporting is unbased? They have often been accused of anti Israeli prejudice.

Recently the “non partisan” British National Union of Journalists voted for an economic boycott of Israel. Mind you, the BBC has a policy against the use of the word “terrorist” even when the UK is attacked because the word implies a “value judgment“ and “partiality“:

“…"Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgements.....The value judgements frequently implicit in the use of the words "terrorist" or "terrorist group" can create inconsistency in their use or, to audiences, raise doubts about our impartiality…”

Hamas appreciated the British “impartiality” and succeeded in obtaining the release of BBC journalist Alan Johnston who was being held in Gaza by terrorists. ALL sources of information are biased in one fashion or another. How about the story of the Palestinian child that allegedly was killed by Israeli gunfire (French television)? From Clifford May, Scripps Howard News Service, March 3, 2005:

“…The image is as disturbing and iconic as any seen during the many decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict: Mohammed al-Durra, just 12 years old, caught in a cross-fire in Gaza, trembling against a wall, his father desperately attempting to shield him. And then, heartbreakingly, Mohammed al-Durra, shot and killed by Israeli gunfire.
His death, in September 2000, inspired poems -- and suicide bombings. According to the 2001 Mitchell report it was one of the events that set off the intifada.
A poster of Mohammed al-Durra is in the background of the video of the butchering of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Osama bin Laden used the boy's image in recruitment tapes and began a list of indictments against America by saying that President Bush “must not forget the image of Mohammed al-Durra and his fellow Muslims in Palestine and Iraq.”
But there is something most people don't know about this story: It didn't happen the way I described it above. It may not have happened at all…”

This false story wrongly generated huge world condemnation for Israel and was used by Bin Laden to justify attacks against the US (of course, al Qaeda TARGETED and killed numerous children in Iraq which he nevers seems to mention). All sources should be questioned, but Wikipedia is still a reasonable source of information regardless of what you think so I will continue to use Wikipedia in the future.

Finally, the UN and their bias toward Israel. The problem with the UN passing resolutions condemning Israel but no one else is that the UN loses their credibility, thus countries with extreme human rights violations that far exceed Israel’s such as Sudan which looks to the “neutral” world organization for fairness and impartiality are reduced to skepticism and cynicism because of the politics involved in the world body.

Am I saying that Israel has not committed any crimes against the Palestinians? Absolutely not. They most certainly have and they deserve to be condemned by the UN, but the Palestinians have also perpetrated numerous war crimes including targeting civilians, using the civilian population as shields, etc. which should also be condemned by the UN as well.

If Olmert said that all Israeli Palestinians should be forced out of Israel, that would rightly bring condemnation from the world body, but when Hamas which is an elected representative of the Palestinian people, says “Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews.”, we get absolutely nothing from the UN. When the UN passes a resolution condemning Israel for one thing or another, I don’t even read the article because, just like Demetris, only half of the story is being told (and I didn‘t accuse Demetris of being biased, HE WAS BIASED). The US recognizes this bias, thus they always vote against these resolutions - a stand I totally agree with (until the UN changes from a political body to a neutral arbitrator of world problems - which they are not).

Since we have been discussing this issue, I have not seen even once where you have criticized Palestinian tactics. Do you believe that targeting civilians is OK? That the goals of Hamas (elected leader of Palestine) are consistent with peace in the ME? That rocket fire into Israel is justified especially while peace talks are being conducted?

just a quick quip-
i saw on hardball yesterday that every single american is in debt to the tune of 30,000 dollars-
(because of the enormous national debt- its a breakdown, not personal debt)

on second thought, maybe we should keep that 23k and spread it around here a little

Tom,

Thanks for the tip on the tip on Rami G. Khouri and the Lebanese newspaper, The Daily Star. I’ve added it to my favorites list and will try to find time to keep up on it.

Victoria,

You always have such a delightful way of putting things into perspective:

“so have the irish, alot MORE in fact-but do you see anoyne suggesting we send 23,000 dollars a year to every irish man woman and baby? (which is the current amount we GIVE israel)”

Yup, I agree with you and BobL, I would prefer to give it to the Irish. But if we have to give it to anyone, I would give it to the Palestinians until we had evened things out. There must be something wrong with your figures though. If we give 23,000 dollars per Israeli, times 5 Million Israelis, that is 115 Billion dollars per year, or 4 Trillion dollars total in 35 years. Oops, back to the calculator.

BobL,

“At least they're [the Irish] not taking other people's land, settling on it and when they complain killing them. “

and

“…Given the history of Israel, which includes the displacement of a couple of million Palestinians and the 60 straight years of constant conflict, I could understand an argument that stated the US and Britian in hindsight made a terrible mistake…”

Yup, I agree, good point.

Tom,

“About 700,000 Palestinians and about the same amount of Jews were displaced (although the Jewish displacement from the Middle East and elsewhere - where they had lived for centuries - is rarely mentioned).”

Yes, but the Jews had it coming; they were the instigators.

“What I find particularly disturbing is the one-sided view of the conflict that is constantly argued on this site. The Israelis ACCEPTED the two state solution”...

Yes, some of us see the Palestinians as the victim of the Israeli/US aggressors. The Palestinians have fought back using some unsavory techniques, which some call terrorism and others call asymmetric warfare, but it seems to me that they have no choice. To yield to the overpowering Israeli/US military might and accept the two-state solution is just unimaginable. They would be giving up their last vestige of human dignity, hence the exploding Muslim.

“You and I both know that Israel was attacked by the Arabs the day after Israel declared independence which resulted in the Palestinian refugees that are now located in camps littered throughout the Middle East. THE REFUGEES ARE A DIRECT RESULT OF ARABS ATTACKING ISRAEL.”

Yes, but you and I both know that the Arab cause was just. They had no other choice if they were to maintain any claim of human rights and dignity.

Yes, I know that the peace offer made to the Palestinians in 2000 sounds good to you, but it doesn’t to me. I’ll take your word that it included 97% of the occupied territories, but that’s not good enough. They still would have kept 58% of the Palestine mandate that the British chose to split between the Jews and Palestinians. The have no right to any land in Palestine after being absent for almost 2,000 years; accept for the 2% of the population that was there at the turn of the 20th century.

“I am not optimistic about peace in the Middle East, but the Palestinians bear their fair share of the blame.”

I agree there will be no peace, but Palestine does not bear part of the blame. Their unending fight for their land and dignity is just.

“Finally, there can be no peace in the Middle East as long as there is state sponsored terrorism against Israel and who will suffer the most?”

Yes, the Palestinians will suffer the most, but the US and Israel are the terrorist states.

“Also, there are secessionists all over the world who would disagree with your statement.”

But Israel is not a secessionist (withdrawer). It is an invader and occupier.

Demitris,

I can’t agree that the Zionists want to occupy all the land between the Nile and Euphrates. Oh maybe some do but not many. But it’s enough that I agree strongly with your contention that they have no right to occupy any part of Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and between Egypt and Lebanon and Syria.

Phew, I’m long winded today; I don’t expect anyone to read this.

Thanks for the posts all.

Hi Victoria, Tom, BobL, Demetris, (Where's AM?)

Gee, I go away for just a few days thinking this blog is dead, and look at you guys. It will take a while to get caught up. Meantime, here is some stuff for you to chew on that you may not have seen.

Here is the 2nd of two articles in the WP this week about the exhumation in Washington D.C. and reburial in Israel of Theodore Herzl’s grandson.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120502025_pf.html

Here is the link to the 1st.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/29/AR2007112902368_pf.html

This is the tragic story of the Zionists’ greatest hero. The first article mentions in passing what an incredible simpleton Herzl was. It never occurred to him that the Palestinians would not readily give up their land and welcome the invading Zionists with open arms.

"Historians and others still sift through Herzl's writings and see many legacies. They note that he envisioned a Jewish state where people spoke not Hebrew, but German; that he and other early Zionists failed to understand Arab nationalism; and that in a utopian novel Herzl wrote, he describes a binational, egalitarian state."

From the 2nd article:

“Sixty years after jumping off a bridge to his death, the last descendant of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was buried Wednesday in a Jerusalem cemetery bearing his grandfather's name _ bringing an end to a torturous family saga and finally fulfilling Herzl's century-old will.

Herzl's son also committed suicide. He had a daughter who was mentally ill and another who was killed in the Holocaust. In the past year, three of the founder's four descendants have been buried in Israel_ no easy task because of rabbinical injunctions against Jewish burials for those who have killed themselves or converted to other religions.”...

"His vision was realized, and now there is an exemplary nation," said Liora Herzl, the great-granddaughter of Herzl's cousin. But she noted that Zionism's founder left behind a broken, cash-strapped family. "He was completely consumed with his commitment to the Zionist idea, and his family ultimately paid the price for that."

“Norman was the lone family member committed to Herzl's Zionist cause. He read about his grandfather's work and was active in his movement.”

So here we have the idealist Zionist simpleton who is the principal founder responsible for the incredible mess we have in the Middle East today. The question for us to unravel is: what are we going to do about it?

Clearly, the rightful owners of the land of Palestine are in no mood to welcome the Zionist invaders with open arms and they continue to demand the return of their land. The USA is stuck with the consequences of its incredibly poor judgment in siding with the Zionists on this issue.

We are stuck with only two very unattractive options that I can see:

1. Continue with the present approach of funding (with my tax dollars) the slow genocide of the Palestinian people through the denial of their basic human rights and dignity. This is a fate worse than death as evidenced by the tasteless joke of the occasional exploding Muslim. The Israelis confiscate most of the West Bank water, to the point that Palestinians do not even have what the UN and the US government both regard as the minimum necessary to sustain human life, while Jewish settlers - accustomed to living in their native Europe or America - water grass lawns and fill swimming pools with water taken from under the feet of the Palestinians, while the Palestinians are rarely allowed to drill wells.

2. Admit what horrendous mistakes were made by the League of Nations in the 20th century with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the UN Partition of Palestine in 1947 and correct them. How do we correct them? Restore the original pre-1947 boundary of the map of Palestine, go back to the single state solution, recognize the Palestinian Refugee right of return, form a UN mandate to control the allocation of water and enforce the peace. The Israeli planes, tanks, ships and nuclear weapons and all Palestinian arms would be destroyed.

To my mind the 2nd option is the clear choice. What are the odds of this happening? I would say not so good; it is very difficult to admit when one has made a mistake.

Victoria

Thanks for the post, and I will get back to you, hopefully, by tomorrow.

Demetris

I said,

“Demetris, when you say fair and just, impartially and without prejudice, would you say that YOUR summary of the [HISTORY OF EVENTS] surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is fair and just, impartial and without prejudice?…”

You said:

“…In my post I listed a number of irrefutable facts which, as a whole, constitute the root-cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Show me the unfairness and partiality in my statements and please be specific…”.

The root cause of the Palestinian conflict is really simple. The Israelis accepted a two state solution and the Arabs did not. This still persist today via Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah (and Iran who funds and directs these terrorist organizations).

The unfairness and partiality in your statements is because they represent only one side of the history of events in the Palestinian-Israeli story.

For example, where, in your statements do you mention that the Arabs attacked Israel immediately after Israel claimed independence? Where do you mention that the state of Israel is a legal state under international law? Where do you mention that the Palestinian refugees were created as a direct result of that initial attack? Where do you mention that there were 850,000 Jews forced from their homes in the Middle East (and elsewhere)) by the Arabs after 1947 so that today, a paltry 50,000 still remain? The Palestinian resistance (terrorism) had nothing to do with the West Bank and Gaza until Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo Accords. Until that point in time, the Palestinians were fighting for the eradication of Israel. It became an issue when Arafat recognized Israel wasn’t going anywhere and they lowered their expectations. In 2002, the Arab League offered Israel full diplomatic recognition in return for Israel to move back to the 1967 borders, thus, the Arabs fought for a half of a century to eradicate the state of Israel.

Where do you mention that the Arabs attacked Israel in 1967 and 1973 with the intent of (illegally) targeting Israeli population centers and destroying Israel. Where do you mention that Israel acquired the West bank and Gaza as a direct result of Arab aggression in 1967? That the greatest proportion of Israeli acquisition of land has come AFTER they had been attacked.

In your unbiased view of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where do you mention that Israel dismantled settlements in the Sanai and returned the land to Egypt after Egypt announced their intentions for peace? Or that Israel dismantled their settlements in Gaza? Or that Israel offered to dismantle 64 (illegal) settlements in the West Bank in 2000 when they offered peace to the Palestinians and Arafat REJECTED the plan WITHOUT a counter offer.

Terrorism

“…During WWII, in virtually all the Nazi-occupied countries in Europe, the patriotic resistance against the occupiers was encouraged and actively supported by the United States. Many of the freedom-fighters did not hesitate to place their own lives on the line in the cause of freedom from their Nazi oppressor. The similarity with the acts of Palestinians against the Israeli occupation forces is evident and a distinction should be made between freedom-fighters and terrorists…”

Now that is an interesting view of history. In 1921, Mohammad Amin al-Husayne was appointed the grand mufti of Jerusalem - a title he kept until 1947. Al-Husayne was a virulent anti Semite. He inspired the Hebron massacre of 1929 in which over 100 Jews were slaughtered, and other acts of violence against the Jews. He welcomed the Nazis to Jerusalem after Hitler came to power and spent his war years in Germany where he participated in atrocities against the Jews. He was a ”…full fledged war criminal and he was so declared at Nuremberg…” In 2002, Arafat declared Husayne a hero to the Palestinian people. Some hero. A leader of the Palestinians BEHOLDEN to Hitler.

Targeting civilians is a trademark of Arab “resistance”. I could publish a long list of Palestinian atrocities perpetrated against Israeli civilians by your so called “freedom fighters”. After the failed peace talks in 2000, Arafat directed a wave of suicide bombers against Israeli civilians targeting old people, pregnant women and children at markets, coffee shops and other high value targets. In all, over 1000 Israelis were killed.

Look up any definition of “terrorism” and most begin with “targeting civilians” so your view of “freedom fighters” is misguided at best. The 2000 intifada led to the current conditions in the West Bank where the Palestinians have little freedom of movement because of the checkpoints and the wall, but Israel will move to protect her citizens. The Palestinians ALWAYS pay a higher price than the Israelis - a price the Palestinian leadership is willing to pay, however, in my opinion, to turn world opinion against the Israelis. I agree that Israel needs to remove her settlements to the approximate 1967 border. Terrorism (targeting civilians) against Israeli citizens by Arafat began in the 1960s and continued to his death.

“…A. To begin with, an immediate cessation of all hostilities must be IMPOSED by the United Nations on both sides…”

You said in your own post that Arafat could not (even if he wanted) stop terrorist attacks. What makes you believe that the UN can? Or that Abbas can? Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah are continually undermining peace efforts. All three including Iran believe Israel should be eradicated. This is what you said.

“…Item: When Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel, he had adopted the satanic ploy of demanding from Palestinian Chairman Arafat to “rein-in the terrorist groups”. This impossible-to –comply-with demand had allowed Sharon to launch his hard line campaign of assassination and destruction with presumed impunity…”.

As you are implying, you cannot impose peace on the Palestinians. So, who really wants peace?
(This is also an effective strategy to counter the rockets being launched from Gaza.)

“…C. Israel must be compelled to:
1) Declare unequivocally that it has no aspirations to any land other than that whose boundaries were defined in the U.N. Declaration which established it as a state….”

What you are really saying is that the Arabs made a huge mistake attacking Israel after independence. To expect the Israelis to move back to the 1947 boundaries is completely unrealistic.

“…2) Withdraw from the occupied territories including all the illegal settlements and the Golan Heights….”

As soon as Syria which has her hands soiled in Lebanon as well as Israel, comes to grips with her open sponsorship of terrorism including the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafiki Hariri, Israel will hand over the Golan heights. In the 2000 peace initiative, Israel offered to withdraw from 64 illegal settlements in the West bank which was rejected by Arafat WITHOUT a counter offer. Arafat did not want peace (in my opinion).

“…3) Accept the creation of an independent Palestinian State.
4) Allow the return of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes under the Israeli ethnic cleansing campaign…”

Israel accepted the Palestinian state in 1947 but was immediately attacked. The refugees will not be allowed back into Israel for obvious reasons (fair or not). Of course, you would support the same for the 850,000 Israelis forced off of Arab land, right? How convenient that you for got these people.

“…5) Provide just compensation for the homes and lands previously owned by Palestinians and forcibly appropriated by Israel or return such homes and lands to their rig