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RedditAs America's leaders knew at least as far back as Thomas Jefferson, a functioning media is critical to the informed citizenry necessary for a working democracy. That was the partial basis of the Israeli high court ruling on December 31 directing the Israeli government to allow foreign media into Gaza, where it has so far prevented all reporters from visiting since it commenced bombing raids nine days ago.
The decision by the High Court came in response to a petition by the Israeli Foreign Press Association, which represents more than 400 members from the world's leading international print and electronic media. The association, composed of media outfits across the political spectrum, called the ban "an unprecedented restriction of press freedom" on Israel's part.
The Israeli High Court specifically ruled that the Israeli government should allow a press pool of at least twelve foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip. The government countered that it will allow eight reporters into Gaza every time it opens the border at the Erez crossing, but so far the crossing has remained completely closed to entry.
Calling out Israel's intransigence, Human Rights Watch has started a campaign today calling on Israel to immediately allow journalists and human rights monitors access to Gaza. Their presence can discourage abuse by warring parties, confirm reports of illegal acts by both warring parties, and help save lives.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International has submitted an urgent letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appealing to the US government to vigorously pressure all parties to the current Gaza conflict to immediately cease indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks which cause civilian deaths and casualties, allow necessary humanitarian aid and workers into the region and suspend the transfer of US weapons to Israel.
Click here to join your name to the campaign. I don't expect Condi to heed the call but if we want Barack Obama to pursue a substantially different course than his predecessor, we need to exert sufficient pressure on the government, and adding your name to this call is a good first step.
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Peter Rothberg
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Mr. Rothberg, I suggest to you that it seems obvious that Israel has blocked reporters from entering Gaza because specifically Israel *does not want* coverage out of its close control of the rampage in Gaza. Israel apparently has a major broadcast and online PR machine cranked into full gear and is attempting to control the "message" surrounding its savagery. When first their Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and now a high-ranking cabinet secretary declare that "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" they don't want uncontrolled photo and broadcast information coming from Gaza, accessible to the Western world in particular the American public, countering them.
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 3:02pm
hmmm...but lots of reporters would see lots of collateral damage!!!
Posted by ibbleblibble at 01/05/2009 @ 3:05pm
SY -- I completely agree.
HAPPY -- The pt is that journos aren't currently able to "be adults and take their chances." The Israeli military is preventing that.
Posted by Peter Rothberg at 01/05/2009 @ 3:09pm
I also think it is germane in light of what Peter Rothberg is telling us to bring up an online publication written by one of his colleagues, Max Blumenthal, in the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max- blumenthal/ why-arent-more-americans_b_155194.html
Blumenthal points the reader to a very telling post indicating that, in a surprise outcome, polling is placing the American public as completely divided over Israel's rampage - normally Israeli actions are more supported in the US. Furthermore, Blumenthal shows us that by a very large margin Democrats in the general public are appalled by and oppose Israel's savagery in Gaza, whereas the Democratic Party officials themselves are lockstep with Republicans and the famous Israel lobby in blind and admiring support of what Israel is doing.
Information is key here; Blumenthal seems to be indicating that the PR mechanism that Israel is trying to rely on to keep people oblivious as to the reality of what it is doing and the frame in which the actions are taking place is failing. This is because the PR mechanism is establishment editorialists and journalists who Israel favors and these figures have lost credibility, likewise, as uncontrolled information comes from Gaza online, people wake up to what is happening.
I wonder if there is an international law regarding the rights of warring parties to allow international observation of their war acts?
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 3:17pm
Officer Barbrady- "Nothing to see....move along, people!"
(as cows get turned inside out by a UFO and Cartman gets the "john lowell" treatment!)
heheh
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 3:20pm
Al-Jazeera, of course, has information not exactly under Israeli control and production:
" ... Palestinian civilians are continuing to suffer as the Israeli military pushes deeper into the Gaza Strip.
At least 540 people have been killed in the territory in the last 10 days, with at least 100 deaths reported since the Israeli ground offensive began on Saturday ..."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/ 01/200915143237167997.html
One of the things I am finding very disturbing is the eerie silence in Western media as to updates now that the "ground invasion" has begun. We were getting hourly updates on casualty figures and destruction in general during the air war. Now that there are soldiers invading, though, there is no longer any update from CNN, or other western media. However, al-Jazeera tells us that there have been 100 reported deaths since Israel invaded.
I leave anyone reading this post with the idea that, in particular, within the context of American media and Israel, the New York Times has transformed itself into an outpost of the Israeli "Defense" Forces. The Times appears to be a de facto offshore propaganda ministry deployed against the public here in the US. Someday, they'll need to answer to their peers for that.
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 3:21pm
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 3:21pm
See, I would think the Israelis would WANT other press in there...
IF Al-Jazeera isn't telling the truth.
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 3:41pm
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 3:41pm | ignore this person | warn
Certainly makes sense to me ...
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 3:50pm
Of course they don't want the media to see what atrocities they have done, everything is done on Israel's terms and why is that? They invade Gaza because they see fit to do so and nobody challenges them...they stop the press and nobody challenges them, just what the hell kind of power do they have over everyone?? Israel is a law unto itself and it's about time that was stamped out..just who do they think they are as they can do whatever they want and get away with it. We are so gutless here in the US and afraid to speak out against Israel..we would lick their boots for them if they asked. How Pathetic.
Posted by Caj at 01/05/2009 @ 4:27pm
Thanks for this, Peter!
We all know the "safety of the journalist" excuse is just to prevent reporting that could turn public opinion against the Israeli government.
Keep up the good work!
Posted by Metteyya at 01/05/2009 @ 4:40pm
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 3:50pm
Doesn't even have to be the Jerusalem Post...send in Fox News, The Weekly Standard, National Review....
Even if they "soft-pedalled" the worst, would they risk (what little) what credibility they had with a full cover-up of atrocities???
But then again, imagine the embarassment if FNC or the Standard or NR had to report....something "bad"...that even the American and Israeli Hard Right couldn't deny, given the sources????
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 4:41pm
Even if the press core were allowed in...isn't that laughable "allowed in" as if they own the place? We still wouldn't get a true story of what is going on anyway, they would censor it to suit their purpose. I don't know why we just don't hand over the keys of the kingdom to Israel they hold all the cards it seems.
Posted by Caj at 01/05/2009 @ 4:49pm
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 4:41pm | ignore this person | warn
"Something bad" already has arguably taken place - a really gross and bent level of violence and destruction - but I think you mean something like a neighborhood massacre on a local scale, or something like that, getting documented and exposed. In that case, I'd count on the FNC and the rest of the outlets you mention, in addition to the NYT and CNN, to lead the charge in spinning whatever particularly ugly thing happened for Israel. There simply would never be any acknowledgment of guilt or wrongdoing.
Posted by syfriendly at 01/05/2009 @ 5:02pm
We have truly sunk into the sewage moment. First it was Jeremiah Wright that we vilified because he held a mirror up to show us how ugly we had become and we couldn't bare to see ourselves, now we turn completely away from the ugliness that out surrogates are doing in Gaza. We have truly become the thugs of the world
Posted by julien38 at 01/05/2009 @ 5:22pm
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 3:20pm
LOL!:~D
Posted by Benchrest at 01/05/2009 @ 5:27pm
We have truly become the thugs of the world
Posted by julien38 at 01/05/2009 @ 5:22pm |
How right you are...condoners of wicked atrocities and we say and do nothing!!!
Posted by Caj at 01/05/2009 @ 5:44pm
Another typical prime ( or shall we say perhaps " Crime" - ) example of how the Jewish-owned media controls the daily "News" consumption for those >moronic Gentiles< at a time when the >60-year massacres< of the Palestinian people by the "Nazi"-forces of Israel is presently going on. Not to much of any surprise, as usual seen over the past years, has the rest of the world been given given a bunch of BS-Lies such as the " safety of the journalist " or " we are not aware of any such allegations", etc....just basic crap. And while this current outrage is being condemned by every civilized nation around the world(in huge rallies and demonstrations against this racist Jewish regime) the >stupid average American Moron< instead is being served the "Medication"-Bedtime Treatment >....more of the >Holocaust Fairy Tales< to cover up these sick Jewish crimes ....fully supported by this > Israeli controlled Administration< and in the name of the people of the United States..............how disgusting ! I , however, do object to this general assumption : NOT in my Name !
Posted by vote at 01/05/2009 @ 6:50pm
Congratulations to the Israeli Foreign Press Association for taking their profession seriously.
Not the first time, sadly, I believe. Don't remember exactly, but do think Israel did the same off and on during the long siege of the Palestinian Territories while Arafat was holed up in Ramallah and Israel once before sought to crush "terrorists". At Jennin particularly.
In the end, little changes.....
Charlie M.
Posted by cmsandia at 01/05/2009 @ 8:15pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/05/2009 @ 7:47pm
You know Larry, your chastisement would hold more power...
if YOU weren't JUST AS vehmently the mirror opposite of what you attack.
YOU have besmirched Islam...if hating Jews is anti-Semitism, you hate Muslims (whatever term is appropriate). You say you don't, but if somebody said "I don't hate Jews...just Judaism", nobody would buy it and nobody buys your rationalization.
Second, just as you say the Palestinians want to eliminate Israel....YOU have stated that your "peace plan" is for the Israelis to reabsorb Gaza and the West Bank...essentially eliminating Palestine.
And as for your attacks on "The Nation" staff, even the most liberal or "anti-Israel" writer (your view) Robert Dreyfuss has criticized Hamas....
where as you wouldn't say a single unkind word against the most right-wing fringe element of Israel...given you wholeheartedly support their agenda.
As noted on a previous thread....there are vehmently anti-Israel types (rykart)...but there are equally vehement and radical elements in the "pro-Israel" camp...
and that's you.
Somebody else might have be able to make your charges, but it's pure hypocrisy from you.
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 9:38pm
"...send in Fox News,"
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 4:41pm
"...Hamas hides behind and next to children, Mosques, schools and hospitals."
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/05/2009 @ 7:47pm
Interestingly enough, I saw two Fox journalists refute the idea that Hamas hides among the Palestinian population of Gaza, noting rather that Hamas' members are part of that population and merely go home to their families when they are done fighting or firing rockets. Lvl, would you have expected the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto to have set up a separate military base for the convenience of the Germans?
Posted by cka2nd at 01/05/2009 @ 10:50pm
Posted by vote at 01/05/2009 @ 6:50pm
This Arab-American says take your hatred of Jews someplace else, scum bag.
Posted by cka2nd at 01/05/2009 @ 10:51pm
It has become quite clear that the Nation including Katrina are now equally responsible with all the anti-semite crowd of attempting to further fan the flames of hate towards Israel and Jews.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/05/2009 @ 7:47pm
ugh!
so dislike of israel = hatred of jews?
you are warped.
Posted by frosty zoom at 01/05/2009 @ 11:05pm
Oh sure, a bunch of goo-goo eyed liberal MSM types. They will do the bidding of Hamas only too willingly. On the other hand they would make nice "accidental" targets for the IDF....send um.
Posted by pyeatte at 01/05/2009 @ 11:08pm
Posted by vote at 01/05/2009 @ 6:50pm
In your view, how do "Jews" own the media?
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/05/2009 @ 7:47pm
How does one defend oneself from Hamas - by killing children? In your view, how is it that Hamas is responsible for the death of children killed by Israeli soldiers? Are Israeli soldiers allowed to do anything in pursuit of Hamas? What limits, if any, do you think should apply to Israel? Have they ever passed those limits?
Would you accept the same rationale that you apply to Israel if one of your children or grandchildren were killed by a police officer in your town while responding to a call?
I know, of course, that you won't respond to these questions because of the reasons Mask outlined above. But, I think there are worth asking at any rate.
Posted by srjenkins at 01/06/2009 @ 01:04am
The Israeli people demanded their leaders commit a massacre in Gaza.
It is fitting that the Israeli people pay for what they have done.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 03:21am
"Meanwhile, Amnesty International has submitted an urgent letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appealing to the US government to vigorously pressure all parties to the current Gaza conflict to immediately cease indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks which cause civilian deaths and casualties, allow necessary humanitarian aid and workers into the region and suspend the transfer of US weapons to Israel."
One is left to surmise that all the weaponry that Hamas possesses has been forged in Palestinian kitchens and dining rooms. If they stopped "making" that stuff and then using it against the Israelis that would do a lot to dramatically reduce the number of Palestinian children, women and men being killed at present and the many more that are likely to be killed before this episode finishes.
That strikes me as being a simple but profound solution. So perhaps AI could suggest that the Palestinians in Gaza desist from that dangerous cottage industry and testing the results out against professional soldiers with sophisticated weaponry.
Of course if they have other sources of weapons the same advice would apply.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 04:36am
Posted by Mask at 01/05/2009 @ 9:38pm
Mask, if you are referring to Liberty's 7.47pm post only I would suggest that it is you who is having a sly dig at all Muslims, whom as you know are not atheists like yourself, which supplies motive. Liberty did not mention Muslims but rather the extremist Hamas and Hezbollah movements which share the Muslim Brotherhood ideology and which most Muslims reject as an aberration.
I have a slightly different view of the Nation's Journos and it is that in some way they see Israel as an extension of all they hate in the "war mongering military complex" or"neo-cons" and though at heart they want to be peace loving pacifists, and I'm sure they hate Hamas's ideology as much as GW, Hamas is all they are left with to fight their dirty little war. The irony is delicious as they are trying to curse Hamas while at the same time implicitly blessing them. There certainly are a few here who've probably had their brains sucked out through their noses, probably by Mossad, but I think the brain normal Lefties are probably nice people who are too pig headed to admit they are flogging a dead horse whilst Hamas is in the saddle.
And all the while the smiling unimpeached Satan sits back and encourages Israel to do what it needs to do. It's enough to make a Lefty go Grrrr (as JR would say).
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 05:29am
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 05:29am
No, I'm referring to statements by LVLIB in the past where he said Islam is "Satanic" and his statement on how we need "total war" including "think Dresden" to "win" the "War on Terror"...and to his previous statement this week where HIS "peace plan" was for Palestinians to give up Gaza and The West Bank to "gain peace"....a fantastically radical idea nearly (yes, not quite) as the idea of the "destruction of Israel".
As for "The Nation" writer, let me point out that it was ARI BERMAN of same that noted the "reflexively anti-Israel Left", thus acknowledging the radicalism on the other side....
something rare from you guys on the Right about LVLIB types.
Posted by Mask at 01/06/2009 @ 07:29am
Just as one of the posters said early,It seems like a lot of people are not buying into this "david and goliath" ongoing saga this time.
Its like shooting fish in a barrel.
Posted by eniobob at 01/06/2009 @ 07:48am
Israel are the bully boys here and the US Govt are just gutless wonders for just sitting by and saying nothing!
Posted by Caj at 01/06/2009 @ 08:11am
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 05:29am
LVL has made his opinions clear over many posts that the problem is not Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups, but the Islamic religion. He specifically talks about his interpretation of the Koran - not in the original Arabic - and his understanding of various aspects of Sharia law where he believes, as a Christian, all followers of Islam want to subject the world to its domination and in the event that occurs, LVL would become, at best, a 2nd class citizen and at worst, be executed for his beliefs. In short, the issue of dhimmitude.
While I think that's all crazy talk, I give LVL credit that, at least, he is very clear about what he believes and doesn't try to hide it behind ambiguities.
You've suggested in previous posts that you too believe that Islam has some inherent problems. Is this true? Do you care to outline your arguments as clearly as LVL has?
Posted by srjenkins at 01/06/2009 @ 09:11am
Posted by srjenkins at 01/06/2009 @ 09:11am
I'll agree on that point. LVLIB is, at the least, the most HONEST of the Hard Right supporters of Israel.
His position is as clear and unambigious...as it is radical and preposterous for any peaceful outcome.
But he usually won't shirk and use ambiguities like "end Hamas" or "let Israel finish the job" like many of the other Righties use. He's an out-and-out "Go in and kill anything that looks like Hamas and if there is 'collateral damage'...it's their own fault!" and a "Gaza and West Bank should be Israel's...the Palestinians can become Israelis or move somewhere else!"
Posted by Mask at 01/06/2009 @ 09:42am
It is fitting that Hamas must pay for what they have done to Gaza.
Posted by pyeatte at 01/06/2009 @ 11:29am
Hamas charter????
But it's just fine for Israeli garbage and filth like Golda Meir to declare "there's no such thing as Palestinians!"
It's fine for their Chief of Staff to state they would strip the Palestinians of their land, after which, the victims will "run around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." (Raphael Eitan)
It's ok for their bloodthirsty, lunatic rabbis to promote genocide:
http://tinyurl.com/9ut6jj
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 11:55am
I'm confused. The U.N. partitioned Palestine into two countries. The other ME nations never accepted the partition and tried to wipe Israel off the map. There would have been a 2 state solution decades ago if the other ME nations accepted the original borders pursuant to the UN resolution of 60 years ago. However, Israel is not blameless. The West Bank and Gaza settlements were clear attempts to conquer the lands that did not belong to them. The link to Biblical Judea and Israel is absurd and should be treated as such. And finally, 2 of Israel's Prime Ministers (Begin and Shamir) belonged to terrorist groups targeted by the British before the UN partition. So Israel has no right to call any group a terrorist organization no matter how despicable that organization is.
Posted by k20thmaine at 01/06/2009 @ 12:05pm
People are "reflexively anti-Israel" for the same reason they are "reflexively anti-Charles Manson."
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 12:07pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 10:35am
Yes, Larry...as noted, you are atleast the more honest of the "reflexively anti-Palestinians".
In the minority (even in Israel), but honest.
Posted by Mask at 01/06/2009 @ 12:15pm
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 12:07pm
rykart, as stated before, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, you and LVLIB are identical.
Mirror imaged (i.e. of opposite takes on "Who is in the ultimate and TOTAL right")....but identical.
Posted by Mask at 01/06/2009 @ 12:17pm
Posted by k20thmaine at 01/06/2009 @ 12:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person
The U.S. pushed through the partition after Truman was given a 2 million dollar bribe from the Zionists to strong-arm the world into accepting this manifestly unjust partition, which handed over Arab land to a flood of Jewish immigrants, who immediately violated the terms of partition through violence and oppression of the native inhabitants.
Israel did not REALLY accept the partition as a document defining permanent state borders. The statements of their leadership make it undeniably clear they always regarded themselves as an expansionist enterprise, and the partition was merely a stepping stone to greater territorial theft. The palestinians were never granted a state and Israel has consistently rejected such a state on the internationally recognized green line, despite all other parties to the conflict INCLUDING HAMAS, agreeing to these terms again and again.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 12:24pm
According to over 20 years of United Nations General Assembly votes, Israel IS totally in the wrong.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 12:28pm
It's quite obvious from all of the one sided opinions that few know much about the situation in Israel and the reason for that is because few care about it, as all polls from the last election prove.The problems in Israel are being caused by fanatics on both sides and this is a situation,like most situations involving humans, where things are not clear cut and where one side is not all right while the other side is all wrong.There is much blame to go around,but many will not see that because we do not care enough about it to look.The truth is that we humans only become truly excited about that which affects us personally and this only affects Jews and pals, and not the rest of us, so we do not pay much attention to it just as we,pretty much ignore things like Darfur.Mostly we humans, who are not personally affected by it, are just happy that we do not live there and that is just the way it is with humans...That is,in many ways, a good thing because if we became just as emotional about the deaths of people that we do not know like we do with people we know then we would spend our entire lives in mourning,which would make life rather meaningless.Of course,not truly caring means that things like Israel and Darfur will continue to happen.In democracies there is a saying that people vote their pocketbooks.What that means is that we vote for what concerns us personally and do not vote based on views of Darfur and Israel, as polls during the last election clearly show.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 12:30pm
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 12:30pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Long on emotion and frightfully short on facts.
The Palestinians accept two states, the Israelis do not.
The Israelis are invading and occupying Palestinian land, NOT the other way around.
It is not the Palestinians who are dragging Jewish families from their homes in the dead of night and blowing their houses to pieces.
It is not the Palestinians who are depriving the Israelis of movement, medicine, food or a means to earn a living.
I'm sorry. The Israelis have absolutely no case whatsoever. That is the conclusion of virtually all UN member states. That is the conclusion of the mainstream human rights bodies, including Israel's Bt'Selem. That is the conclusion of the ICJ. That is the conclusion of the Jewish UN Special Rapporteur. That is the conclusion of half the Ha'aretz journalists.
To deny reality by presenting a "two sides of the coin" argument is loathsome---a form of holocaust denial.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 12:40pm
rykart-You have no facts nor do you even care.You use this, and other events, in order to engage in your favorite past time-name calling.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 12:45pm
Actually...I presented a list of facts.
The ICJ ruled that ALL the settlements are illegal under International law, Israel is not entitled to a single sand grain of this land and they are required to tear down the wall and pay restitution.
There are a number of other facts in my last post, but you won't take up any of them because you're full of crap.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 12:53pm
rykart-At least,you got to tell me that I was full of crap which should make you feel better since saying such juvenile things is all you ever have to say.Like those on the other side, you only present "facts" that back up your view,but you do not care about the situation in Israel anymore than they do which is why you do not see what is really going on and only have a meaningless one sided view..You failed to address any of the facts I stated about human nature because you know that it's true and that you do not,actually,care about what is going on over there anymore than most people in the world care because it does not affect you personally.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 1:01pm
Absurd.
You want to engage in vague philosophizing about "human nature" because it allows you to ignore what every mainstream human rights body is saying about Israel, the fact that the UN General Assembly assigns responsibility for the horror in the Mid East to Israel's land theft and violations of Intl law and human rights, the findings of the ICJ and overwhelming journalistic testimony, much of it from Israel's own press.
The balance of right and wrong is quite accurately reflected in world opinion...every country on ONE side, the Americans and Israel (with an occasional bought-off non-entity like Tuvalu, or the Marshall Islands) on the other. Those are the votes on resolving the conflict...year after year after year. You can find them easily enough online, if you're interested, which I gather, you're not.
...just curious...did you take the same view of America's napalm bloodbath in Indochina..."hey...both sides are in the wrong....just human nature, after all....blah blah blah?"
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 1:13pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 10:35am
"3. There has never been a historical nation of Arab Palestine, no capital, no international recognition, no distinct ethnicity or language. Prior to 1967, Arabs insisted that the region and the Arabs living there were Syrians."
Obviously you have never read a copy of the Balfour agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
I recommend you read that first. Where in 1917 Balfour actually called the area Palestine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(mandate)
Then I recommend you read that and see the ACTUAL borders as they were agreed upon. Jerusalem was SUPPOSED to belong to neither the Jews or Arabs. Until the Israelis decided they wanted to take it. There was partitioned out a region that is modern day Gaza that went to the Arab states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
Then read that. Israel in the Oslo accord was supposed to pull it's troops out of Gaza and allow the Palestinian government to take it over.
I don't know where you are getting your history but this is where things fell. Dispute it all you want. I'll try to remember the books I read on the issue but for now wikipedia will have to do.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 1:17pm
rykart-Yes,I always take human nature into account because it's humans who do these things and it would rather ignorant to ignore human nature anytime humans are involved.No,I'm not that interested in events in Israel and neither are you and neither is most of the world which is why no one will do anything,but talk, just like we saw with Darfur,Tibet,etc..
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 1:19pm
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 1:19pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Apologies.
That's just too asinine to respond to.
As far as arguments on "the other side" Cccomfo1 has shown they are invented out of whole cloth and fraudulent from top to bottom.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 1:23pm
One side says:
The moon is a triangular strip of land off the coast of Nova Scotia. Mermaids share the moon with John Sununu and Cher. It's always sunny on the moon, and you can buy candy there really cheap!
The other side declares that the moon is a celestial body within our solar system, lying roughly 380,000 km from earth.
Both sides are adamant in their view.
Surely, the truth lies in the middle?
That's the "argument" of the so-called Mid East "moderates."
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 1:34pm
rykart-If my post was too asinine to respond to then why did you respond and why did you respond with something that had no meaning,but was just your usual attempt at a put down,something you are not very good at,by the way.?I've noticed that you have yet to show that you,actually,care about this and the reason for that is because you don't care anymore than most anyone else cares which is why you do nothing,but post meaningless opinions about the subject on here.Do you really believe that either side is going to change their ways simply because you,and others,posted an opinion about the subject on here?The world does nothing because the world is concerned about their own problems and do not care that these people are killing each other.We humans do that on a regular basis and none of us get too upset by it and that is just the way it is.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/06/2009 @ 1:35pm
I guess I'm a little mystified over this whole Gaza attack scenario. Israel supposedly dropped leaflets in the areas they were going to bomb and attack. Just suppose Hammas isn't as dumb as people would think. Do you think they'd leave personnel in the areas to be killed and cleared out?
If we learned anything from Iraq, it is that the military can't fight partisan battles very well. The fighters mingle in with the people and it's pretty much impossible to target which is which.
Very good intelligence and winning the people over are the only ways to win something like this. Not rolling tanks over peoples' homes and dropping bombs in civilian neighborhoods.
All of this is a friggin political stunt.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 01/06/2009 @ 1:38pm
Israel declares they are targeting terrorists.
In at least one case, this appears to be true:
http://tinyurl.com/898lhh
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 1:43pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/05/2009 @ 7:47pm
Liver, You've outdone yourself. Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. Why the hell wouldn't they be involved in government functions for the palestinian people? For all purposes this is now a war between the Palestinian people in Israel. All so that the party in power in Israel can remain in power.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 01/06/2009 @ 1:48pm
That's the "argument" of the so-called Mid East "moderates." Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 1:34pm
Umm no. Obviously you are so willing to believe in your idiotic revisionist history that you are unwilling to view the facts objectively. That's the key to politics. Is objectivity which most people lack. LOOK at the maps of the Accords and the treaties. Gaza was partitioned out in every one as an Arab state and Jerusalem was to be under no one's control. If you can't look at a map that's in pretty colors and discern it's meaning then you have the mental capacity of a 5 year old. I think in this case judging by your example we have to three areas of thought.
The moon is a thing in the ocean.
The moon is a celestial body.
The moon is trying to kill us all.
The center would be the right answer. The right view and the left view will lead us to dead ends and more infighting. Acknowledge the borders and establish two states according to them. Fighting will end in more fighting. Tell me what's your hard right solution that you guarantee to work? Should Israel keep fighting an hope that the rocket fire magically stops? Keep bombing UN schools? Yeah that seems to be working.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 1:50pm
Please re-read my posts.
Thanks.
rykart
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 1:53pm
Finally, Obama had the decency to come out and say something on this atrocity today, not before time in my opinion. This disgraceful behavior by Israel has got to stop, this is just not acceptable and they need to be reigned in pretty quickly. Israel is the scourge of the Middle East and needs to be dealt with accordingly....they have had a free pass to do what they like whenever they like for far too long and it needs to stop.
Posted by Caj at 01/06/2009 @ 3:02pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 2:39pm
Hmm. Weird. Because the three maps that I posted shoe something entirely different. So essentially you are ignoring the volume of evidence and only choosing to read the maps of ONE of the agreements instead of looking at the agreed upon maps of all of the different accords including the last one in the 1990s where Israel agreed to withdraw troops and allow Palestinian authorities to take over the Gaza strip. I see how it works now, you choose to only look at the parts of the history books that support your view and ignore the other ones.
http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/Landownership.html
Look at that. From the same exact website. That's the UN Partition plan of 1947.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 3:20pm
The entire focus of the agreement is to make Palestine a Jewish nation. It further dictates that the Jews must respect of the civil and religious rights of non Jewish citizens there. Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 2:58pm
No. Again you read only what you want to. It says that there is a Jewish connection Palestine and therefore they should make a state WITHIN it for Jewish people. The problem arose when they tried to decide HOW MUCH they were to be given and what the borders were to be. It didn't say they were being alloted ALL of Palestine.
"Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country"
Reconstituting their nation home IN that country. Not giving them the entire area. This doesn't support your argument it just show you are being selecting and biased in how you interpret speech. If they were giving them all of Palestine they wouldn't have even had to draw a map of the borders. The borders are what is under dispute and according to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Gaza was to belong to the Arab states.
Which was then reaffirmed in the 90s when Israel agreed to pull it's troops out of Gaza and allow it to submit to Palestinian rule.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 3:24pm
http://tinyurl.com/objy
Oh an here is another one by the way. That shows that Jerusalem was SUPPOSED to be a non-state within the Arab state.
"Sept. 29: Arab Higher Committee for Palestine announces rejection of UN partition plan. Oct. 2: Jewish Agency announces acceptance of UN partition plan. Oct. 11: US endorses UN partition plan. Oct. 13: Soviet Union endorses UN partition plan."
That's the actual chronology after Britain relinquished the Palestinian situation to the UN. Which means the British mandate doesn't matter. The UN resolution was the last one that mattered and according to the UN resolution Gaza is owned by the Arabs.
You can post about the British Mandate all the you want but the British relinquished control of the region to the UN after they made the mandate in a move that basically said they don't know what the hell they were doing in the first place.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 3:36pm
International Relations 101 midterm:
Question 1: If Gordon Brown began firing missiles at Paris, demanding that Calais and other channel ports be returned to their rightful owner, HRH Queen Elizabeth II, what should be the response of the French government? Compare and contrast with German attempts to reacquire Danzig and Konigsberg, Greek attempts to regain Constantinople, Russian attempts to reacquire Sevastopol, and Indian attempts to reacquire the Aksai Chin region. Be consistent.
Posted by Mistral at 01/06/2009 @ 4:10pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 4:12pm
Two points I want to address here.
A. You keep claiming I am anti-Israel I will keep claiming you are anti-Muslim. You have no basis for this argument you ought as well stop because it makes you look like an idiot. I more than most am looking for a solution that is equitable to all parties involved including Israel. Once you again you choose to ignore the facts for your own version of things.
B. "what you and other anti-Israel attackers ignore is that the supposed superceding UN partition agreement was worthless. The Arabs refused to accept it and showed their disapproval by promptly invading Israel in an attempt to completely destroy them."
This statement invalidates EVERYTHING you said about the British mandate and it's mattering at all. The Arabs wouldn't accept the British mandate either. Which means in effect that Israel has no claim to the land what-so-ever if that is what you are using as the marker for success. You keep moving the marker of what's legitimate and what isn't. Arabs weren't going to accept a British mandate. So it has just as much sway as the UN mandate which means no delegations carving up of the region means anything. If you hold that statement that you just made to be true then you invalidate every argument you have made about the borders because now you are saying that the borders the UN set are not valid because the Arab people will not allow them to be valid. Therefore based on your own logic the borders the British set are not valid because the Arab people will not allow them to be valid.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 4:53pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 4:41pm
Hmm. And the Israelis are bombing UN schools where civilians are hiding. I guess no one has a leg to stand on here. Maybe they should try diplomacy. Because from what I have seen the death toll is becoming increasingly civilian and the rockets have not stopped being fired.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 4:55pm
Oh yeah and let's not forget they are shelling themselves too. Which is a bang up intelligence job.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 5:01pm
Do you really think they will go against the Fatwas and other edicts of the Muslim clerics that the Qu-ran prohibits the existence of Israel?
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 4:12pm
Liver, You cherry pick your information here too. So, do you think the Ultra-conservative Orthodox Jews are accepting of anyone other than Ultra-conservative Orthodox Jews in Israel? That's the problem. You've got militant nutcases such as yourself on both sides of the equation. As long as people like you get your way, death and destruction will follow with no end.
Someday, someone with some clout and some brains will pull the plug on both sides. The majority of people on both sides want peace. It's the assholes who keep stirring up the pot. In most cases, it's the same assholes who make money off buying and selling weapons who are the forces behind stirring up the pot.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 01/06/2009 @ 5:06pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 5:11pm
Your point is? I don't care what The Nation said. You invalidated your entire argument because you said the borders were only allowed to be valid if the Arab nations agreed to them. Which means the borders were never valid in the first place.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 5:14pm
Well, good old Israel scored again hitting a UN shelter and killing innocent people, don't you just love them? Thank God Obama finally made a comment about it...long overdue as far as I'm concerned. I guess Israel are still claiming to be the victims in all this carnage..it must be hell when you have such weaponry as planes, tanks and guns and you are facing "high tech" grounds rockets alone!!! Weapons of any sort kill we all know that, but it's the dispaportinate amount of fire power that is so wrong in this conflict and that is the shame here.
Posted by Caj at 01/06/2009 @ 6:27pm
I guess you and many others take Israel's report at face value...they would never lie would they? They say they are looking for Hamas, and you find them by just dropping bombs willy nilly then or are these special rockets that have built in sonar that can detect "Hamas" only?? Such ludicrous excuses for this blatant regard for innocent people and it will only create more violence in the long run.
Posted by Caj at 01/06/2009 @ 7:05pm
Posted by srjenkins at 01/06/2009 @ 09:11am
Firstly I think that Liberty is a good researcher with a broad grasp of the relevant data. Whether one agrees with his conclusions depends on ones religious and political presuppositions and unfortunately in too many cases the ability of his opponents to think clearly.
As I mentioned recently I'm fairly familiar with the Judeo/Christian culture and the effects that has had on the ethics, legal and political structures in the West. Even Western atheists and agnostics are of the Christian variety. That is very obvious on this forum by the Christian assumptions they make about Muslims and their motivations. With that in mind Liberty at least is going to the source by looking at the Muslim holy book instead of accepting the Left-Wing but heavily Judeo/Christian influenced view of the Muslim world.
I come with no presuppositions about understanding the Muslim mind but on the face of it know that there's a stream of extremist ideology that traces back to Muslim exegetes of the Q'ran and the Hadith.
The three faiths are Abrahamic so Jews, Christians and Muslims have more in common than they do with members of any other faiths and of course atheists and agnostics. (The latter are the ones more likely to be in real trouble if Liberty's fears became reality).
We live fairly close to Indonesia and they practice a more tolerant form of Islam than say the prophet himself, and the Arab conquest of the ME, Asia and Europe in earlier times, indicates. My reading now is that some of the Arab states, as they stand back from full support of the Hamas Palestinians are themselves, Islam or not, able to accommodate the modern world.
Both Christianity and Islam are prosyletising. That leads to a consideration of their goals and means.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 7:27pm
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/06/2009 @ 5:44pm
Again. None of this changes what you said. You said the UN resolution was not valid because the Arabs did not accept it. They obviously didn't accept the British mandate either. Insult me all you want preacher but it doesn;t change the fact that in disregarding my argument that the UN borders are the ones that matter you have in turn destroyed your own argument because the Arabs accepted neither. And no I didn't survive on Cliff notes I actually love to read. I have never actually purchased a Clif note. Not that that matters to you, you'll pass judgement with little to no facts as has been proven time and again.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 7:37pm
Firstly I think that Liberty is a good researcher with a broad grasp of the relevant data. Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 7:27pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Jewish humor at its finest.
You'll drive them wild in the Catskills.
The conflict has little to do with Jewish religion, apart from a handful of (admittedly influential) nut cases in Israel and zero to do with Islam.
It certainly has zero to do with anti-Semitism, as even the far-right Israeli historian/thug Benny Morris acknowledges, when he writes "fear of territorial displacement and dispossession would be the chief motor of Palestinian antagonism to Israel."
It is a conflict of raw power, raw greed, arrogance and land theft. The rest is obfuscation and nonsense.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 7:40pm
It is a conflict of raw power, raw greed, arrogance and land theft. The rest is obfuscation and nonsense. Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 7:40pm
THANK YOU! It's so incredibly true.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 7:48pm
It is a conflict of raw power, raw greed, arrogance and land theft. The rest is obfuscation and nonsense.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 7:40pm
Ha, Ha, love it. You're from the fun and games department. Right? Sort of the wild west reality show?
Was watching a program about Phineas Gage last night. Medical Science learned a lot about how the brain works, when in 1848 while working on a railroad in Vermont. After a hole was drilled into a body of rock, one of Gage's duties was to add gunpowder, a fuse, and sand, then tamp the charge down with a large iron rod. Possibly because the sand was omitted, the powder exploded, carrying iron rod through his head. The rod was an inch and a quarter in diameter, and three feet and eight inches in length. The iron entered on the side of his face, shattering the upper jaw, and passing back of the left eye, and out at the top of the head.
Well it took out Phineas's frontal lobe but he got up, the iron bar landed about 80 feet away, and went to the local GP telling him I have a bit of work for you doctor. But though Phineas lived until 1860 he was never the same man again and neuroscience got a terrific impetus from poor old Phineas's experience, including the practice of lobotomy.
Now what on earth made me think of that in relation to you........ .... oh yes I remember now. Have you every worked on a railroad?
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 8:19pm
Thanks HAPPYLonghorn and lrjones for the reliably content-free posts. It's the one courtesy you pro-Israel blood flukes extend to the civilized world, namely, saving anyone the bother of pondering what you write.
Posted by rykart at 01/06/2009 @ 9:44pm
Posted by HAPPYLonghorn at 01/06/2009 @ 6:47pm
islamos?@?@?@??
kristos?
jewos?
wtf?
Posted by frosty zoom at 01/06/2009 @ 9:44pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 01/06/2009 @ 9:44pm
wtfos?
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 9:48pm
Posted by HAPPYLonghorn at 01/06/2009 @ 9:50pm
What, you thought they were organized? It's obvious in most of these factions when they gain government rule that there are some looking for peace and some who are splinters who will never stop fighting. Hamas aren't ALL look for the death of Israel because I think they know that it is impossible. They don't have enough man power or fire power to destroy Israel. Some of them will accept peace contrary to what we keep hearing from the Pro-War side.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 01/06/2009 @ 9:58pm
Sorry about you Aussies taking it kinda hard down there, what with your resource-heavy econ taking it on the chin across the board!
Posted by HAPPYLonghorn at 01/06/2009
How's things Happy. Things aren't too bad here yet. Our new government benefited from the large surpluses accumulated by the previous conservative government and the first move Kruud made was to guarantee every bank deposit for 3 years. That prevented a run on the banks and stopped any panic. Housing prices have probably dropped only a few percent, maybe a little higher in the resources boom states like WA and Qld, where tradesmen were getting up to $200,000 per year in the mines ,which helped force housing prices up in those states. Notice base metals prices seem to have bottomed. May get back in the stock market soon. I'm all cash at present at 5.25%.
Businesses generally are reducing stocks which is likely to place a bit of pressure on manufacturing jobs but the unemployment rate is still about 4.4%. The dooms dayers are predicting 10% for 09/10 but my guess is they will be proved wrong and China and India will start motoring along again in the next few years. There's only 20 million of us so we don't need much to keep us economically in the pink. May even sell a bit more beef to the US under the Aus/US FTA.
Just had our 8th soldier killed in Afghanistan (none in Iraq since 2003) so our PM, K. Rudd, who rubbished Iraq and embraced Afghanistan, during the election, is not looking so smart these days. Notice our man of steel is getting the highest US civilian award from GW, along with Blair- the Freedom Medal. Don't think Obama will give Krudd one though.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/06/2009 @ 10:02pm
The West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem were not taken from "Palestinians"
this sophistry. Jordanians certainly were palestinians.
during the mandate, arabs from all over migrated to palestine, more of them than the jews. they came for economic opportunity, which arose as a consequence of the mandate, and jewish money being invested.
the jews PURCHASED much of the land in palestine, mostly from absentee landlords in Cairo and Damascus.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/06/2009 @ 11:56pm
"Notice our man of steel is getting the highest US civilian award from GW, along with Blair- the Freedom Medal. "
--lrjones4
"John Howard, Tony Blair & GWB....Titans all!!"
--HAPPYLonghorn
gee---these two are complete, flaming assholes AND they support Israel!
What an absolutely startling surprise!
"during the mandate, arabs from all over migrated to palestine, more of them than the jews. they came for economic opportunity, which arose as a consequence of the mandate, and jewish money being invested."
--emile duBois
(see 'Joan Peters hoax'...exposed 20 years ago.)
You transitional hominids will be making your first tools in another million years or so.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 12:21am
north-americans indians were robbed and exterminated because they wore feathers and thus were clearly not civilized (the suckers did not even know how to lie and cheat when they first encountered anglosaxon western civilizators !). palestinians are tanned, profess the wrong religion --certainly more now than before when they were all commies-- and still earlier they relied too much on camels and were therefore militarily inferior to western civilizators. of course none of that indicates genuine civilization or potential for true civilization down the road so that's why the Great DemocraciesTM decided to give the palestinian land to the zionists in order to make up for german crimes. the zionists like to read a very old book quite related to the old book preferred in the Great DemocraciesTM, so the zionists are truly civilized and hence deserved that land much more (meritocracy!) than the people with camels, bazaars, and funny hats (the harem thing though, should be saved perhaps!?) who already lived there. does that sounds like an incoherent decision that failed to punish the germans, rewarded zionist coveting of a land already inhabited by a third party (a major sin which in Winning SocietiesTM is systematically condoned whenever you manage to get away with it), and created a huge mess at the same time !? well, the whole helped big time to defeat the ruskjies (and save the financial neo-feudal class from economic-justice barbarians!). and in any case the designs of the international Great-Democratic community are inscrutable and should be accepted as revelation (otherwise you are anti-great-democratic, written small).
Posted by erplus at 01/07/2009 @ 07:06am
joking aside, the sympathies of the world's public opinion for the palestinians remain without much consequence because throughout the world bribed politicians elected by rigged electoral mechanisms designed to make the politicians blackmailable by moneyed, finer citizens (otherwise you have barbarism and brazen displays of bad taste by overly remunerated lower classes; remember the finned cruising boat limousines of the 60s' autoworkers?), as a side effect make the same bribed politicians also blackmailable by zionist tycoons (like those who truly have the say at AIPAC). so don't blame the zionists or the politicians, and especially don't make fun of the disenfranchised public opinion since this disenfranchisement together with the conviction that Only Greed WorksTM, are the foundations of The Rise and Triumph Of The Great DemocraciesTM (together with military technology of course).
Posted by erplus at 01/07/2009 @ 07:07am
Yippee, dear old Israel have stopped the carnage for a whole 3 hours bless their kind hearts...how sweet they are!!! This is pathetic, just who made them the rule makers here...oh, let's see it must have been us as we have given them carte Blanc to do everything else.
Posted by Caj at 01/07/2009 @ 07:54am
Posted by Caj at 01/07/2009 @ 07:54am | ignore this person | warn this person
you think that standing on a soap box makes you a bigger person. it does not.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:21am
you think that standing on a soap box makes you a bigger person. it does not. Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:21am | ignore this person | warn this person
Neither does regurgitating laughable hoaxes like Joan Peters and passing them off as articles of wisdom.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 10:42am
who is Joan Peters? your aunt?
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:46am
you think that standing on a soap box makes you a bigger person. it does not.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009
No, I'm not on a soap box, just sick of these atrocities done by Israel and have the right to voice my opinion. you don't agree and that's fine with me.
Posted by Caj at 01/07/2009 @ 10:51am
Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath.'[1]
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:53am
I have never read Peters book, in fact I did not know who she is.
I have however read many books on the palestine question, and the demographic statistics have been consistent.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:56am
So you prefer to get your HOAXES second hand.
You're a joke.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 10:58am
I have however read many books on the palestine question, and the demographic statistics have been consistent.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:56am | ignore this person | warn this person
What books? You mean Alan Dershowitz' "The Case for Israel" ... plagiarized from Joan Peters' fraud?
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 11:01am
Posted by lvliberty1 at 01/07/2009 @ 11:18am | ignore this person | warn this person
you may call me emile. yes, we are in agreement on most of the historical facts. how we interpret history sets us apart.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:23am
What books?
Smith and Brown. I have cited them numerous times.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:24am
Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath.'[1] Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 10:53am | ignore this person | warn this person
Why don't you quote the AUTHOR of this laugh-out-loud snippet?
Are you embarrassed in having to resort to DANIEL PIPES to make your case for Joan Peters' "maverick" historical sewage, blasted to smithereens by a host of scholars, decades ago?
emile.
This is not serious.
I forgive you for your lapse in judgement. Plenty were fooled by this nonsense. That's no crime.
But it's bordering on criminal to keep pushing forward with discredited dreck because you WANT to believe it's true and because you believe it absolves Israel of despicable and indefensible behavior.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 11:27am
despite their vehement comments, there is not a shred of humanism in ryk or caj.
Israel killed hundreds of civilians, a tragedy to be sure. the fact remains that Hamas wishes they could kill as many Israelis, something they have often confessed to.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:27am
despite their vehement comments, there is not a shred of humanism in ryk or caj. Israel killed hundreds of civilians, a tragedy to be sure. the fact remains that Hamas wishes they could kill as many Israelis, something they have often confessed to. Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:27am | ignore this person | warn this person
So "wishing to kill Israelis" is not only equivalent to actually KILLING Palestinians, it's actually WORSE in your book!
This is the guy who wants to deliver a lecture on humanism?!?
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 11:32am
So "wishing to kill Israelis" is not only equivalent to actually KILLING Palestinians, it's actually WORSE in your book!
I have not said this. go argue with yourself.
unlike you I have sympathy with both sides. you are just a member of the grrr, kill, kill club.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:39am
unlike you I have sympathy with both sides. you are just a member of the grrr, kill, kill club. Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:39am | ignore this person | warn this person
and you're a member of the Joan Peters fraud club.
Or maybe you got your warped anti-history, and abysmal perspective from Alan Dershowitz, channelling Joan Peters.
Probably, we'll never know.
Piltdown Man Heaven's Gate Daniel Pipes David Koresh
...any other gemstones from the historical record you'd care to unearth for us?
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 11:53am
rykart-If you look in a mirror, or read your own posts, then you'll see why wars are fought.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/07/2009 @ 12:20pm
rykart-If you look in a mirror, or read your own posts, then you'll see why wars are fought. Posted by i'm nobody at 01/07/2009 @ 12:20pm | ignore this person | warn this person
I don't think I'm handsome enough for people to fight wars over me, (though I appreciate your lavish endorsement).
Incidentally, are you entirely mad?
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 12:35pm
rykart-I noticed that you responded with your customary juvenile attempt at a put down with your usual knee jerk reaction,but you ought to put some thought into what's others say to you and put some thought into your responses,but thank you for proving my point with your knee jerk reaction.Let me explain.We humans get into wars for the same reason that you come on here.You,quite obviously,are trying to pick a fight and you do that because we humans,by nature,enjoy a good fight.We even enjoy fighting wars of words over wars of violence because that is who we are as humans.We only use ideology,religion,and politics,as excuses to engage in one our favorite activities and that is fighting with one another.We humans love to fight as you and the rest of us prove daily and it is our love of fighting that gets wars going and for no other reason..
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/07/2009 @ 12:49pm
ok nobody. I think I get the point of your analysis. I don't find it very persuasive. I don't think that's any explanation at all for why people fight wars and certainly not in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but if you're convinced, swell.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 1:07pm
rykart-Like most humans,you cannot accept your own nature and attempt to deny it in order to keep having fun by fighting about this and other subjects,but the fact that you are, obviously, having fun with your fighting proves my point..All one has to do is look at our sports,blogs,wars,holiday family gatherings,fights between couples,bars on a Saturday night,etc in order to see that we humans enjoy fighting,but you will continue to deny it because accepting it ruins the fun that you are having by fighting with people on here.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/07/2009 @ 1:16pm
I see.
The Palestinians are just SAYING they would like to live lives of dignity and not have bombs raining on their houses and children. Secretly, they like it.
I'm sure you'll find plenty of adherents to your lunatic cosmology, but I'm afraid I won't be one of them.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 1:43pm
rykart-I noticed that,once again,that you did not address anything that I said and responded with nothing meaningful.All humans say that they just want to live lives of dignity and peace,but our actions prove otherwise.Like most people,you are trying to convince yourself that you do not enjoy fighting even though it is quite obvious that you do enjoy fighting and come on here and write posts that are aimed at getting a reaction from the other side in order for you to have fun fighting with them.The reason you post so much name calling and put downs is because you know that those will get the desired reaction and allow you to keep having fun by fighting with people on here.You are,by far,the best example of someone who enjoys fighting, on these boards.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/07/2009 @ 1:54pm
You all need to read The Crusades through Arab eyes by: Amin Maalouf 98 percent of you are clueless about the middle east and spoon fed by the media on what to say and think.
blackcoptermedia.com is the future of news and information.
Posted by thesid at 01/07/2009 @ 2:37pm
LVLIB, just to clarify ...
the "legal authority" for the declarations/resolutions/etc. that you cite for what "should" be the borders of the State of Israel are:
1. The League of Nations
and 2. The British Empire
Correct?
Posted by Mask at 01/07/2009 @ 2:46pm
Ready To Take a Little Quiz?
If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history", I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of "Palestine:"
1. When was it founded and by whom? 2. What were its borders? 3. What was its capital? 4. What were its major cities? 5. What constituted the basis of its economy? 6. What was its form of government? 7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat? 8. Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation? 9. What was the language of the country of Palestine? 10. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine? 11. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and try and find the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against other world currencies on that date. 12. Have the Palestinians left any artifacts behind? 13. Do you know of a library where one could find a work of Palestinian literature produced before 1967? 14. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur? 15. If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat by Israel in the 1967Six Day War?
Posted by thesid at 01/07/2009 @ 4:33pm
Posted by thesid at 01/07/2009 @ 4:33pm
1. What do you call the Arabic Muslims who lived in pre-1947 region later partitioned to become the State of Israel? Ottomans?
2. Where did "Israel" come from...the idea of it as a country? And please cite more than one book in King James English.
3. Why do the ISRAELIS refer to these "generalized Arabs" as "Palestinians"...if there's "no such thing"??!???
4. Were the Iroqouis "Iroquois" or just "generalized Indians" before 1776?
Posted by Mask at 01/07/2009 @ 4:50pm
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 11:39am
Liberty beat me to the punch. Your stuff JR, is accurate, short (unlike some of us) and to the point. In the fine tradition of keeping the bastards honest.
Joan Peters, is not really needed to sustain the argument about Arab settlement in Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries but she's probably got as much credibility as the anti-Zionist Normie Finkelstein and his sidekick Noam C on this one. They reckon Noam reads the stuff and gets Normie to rubbish it. Like a literary tag team. Both bright buttons but to my knowledge neither are professional historians. Peters, it seems is a bit over the top and extrapolates population data too freely but to rely on a couple of Jewish Israel haters - Palestinian lovers for an unbiased analysis of Palestinian history is a bit like getting a fox to mind the chickens.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/07/2009 @ 5:13pm
Peters, it seems is a bit over the top and extrapolates population data too freely.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/07/2009 @ 5:13pm | ignore this person | warn this person
No...Joan Peters is a fraud.
Do you know what a fraud is?
Emile had to invoke Daniel Pipes to try to lend support to her comic book, which was laughed off the world's bookshelves ages ago.
Dershowitz tries to make a "Case for Israel." To do so, he plagiarizes Peters' fraud. He has to, because, like all Israel supporters, he can ONLY buttess his outlandish claims with lies and hoaxes.
The readily available facts are against the pro-Israel goons at every turn, so they are forced into ever more desperate confabulations.
No knowledgeable person takes them seriously any more.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 5:41pm
I was not aware of Peters' book. the arab migration to palestine is documented in numerous books.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 5:55pm
No knowledgeable person takes them seriously any more.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 5:41pm
Looks like poor old Normie, had so much cred he found it a bit hard to get a job because, so it seems, he was thought of as a bit of a ratbag hoaxer, in the tradition of Joan, himself. Though Finkelstein had his supporters, in various places around the world, he generally has been disregarded as a serious critic on that particular Arab population movement issue, amongst American academics and there are others trained in analysing history who do not agree with him.
So a redaction of your "axiom" could well read " no person who has read Normie and Choam takes alternate reasonably well substantiated history, seriously any more".
So which version one favours depends on one's political predisposition. And that's academia for you, in the post-modern world.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/07/2009 @ 6:18pm
No credible accusations of hoax, in Norman's case.
That's just another lie.
All you have is lies.
Norman's scholarship has been endorsed not only by leading academics--Avi Shlaim of Oxford, Sara Roy of Havard, Baruch Kimmerling of Hebrew University, the late Raul Hilberg---dean of holocaust studies, (not to mention MIT's Noam Chomsky and many others), even the University denying him tenure after Alan Dershowitz' threats praised Finkelstein's teaching and scholarship, calling both "outstanding."
You can't post anything that isn't a patchwork of lies.
If you write a single FACT, your argument falls apart.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 6:29pm
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 6:29pm |
Love your angry style matey. You're an undergrad I take it? Always a very impressionable lot.
An undergrad may take what I posted as an argument but I was thinking more in terms of jousting to check out your defences. And I expect better, even from an undergrad, than #$@# or its equivalent.
BTW my reading of it is that Liberty is presently taking you fellas to the cleaners with some well directed posts.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/07/2009 @ 7:17pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/07/2009 @ 7:17pm | ignore this person | warn this person
translation: you have no relevant facts of any kind to support your lies concerning Norman Finkelstein and continue to get your "information" from discredited clowns like Joan Peters and others you are (justifiably) too ashamed to cite.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 7:52pm
Smith and Brown
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:00pm
Smith and Brown Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person
who the hell is that? why no source?
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 8:16pm
I have cited these authors numerous times.
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Paperback) by Charles D. Smith (Author)
International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Game (Princeton Studies on the Near East) L. Carl Brown
your manners are atrocious.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:26pm
you nowhere cite them on THIS blog.
haven't read Charles Smith. There are MANY negative comments about his book from the pro-israel crowd on amazon. They seem quite indignant about his characterization of the Israelis as land thieves and the lengthy, well-documented Palestinian presence in the region. Several "critics" on amazon want me to read (surprise surprise) JOAN PETERS instead!! take a look if you don't believe me.
So perhaps that's why you've been so reticent about citing your sources. They make my case and demolish yours.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 8:37pm
btw..I'm not holding up amazon readers as any great arbiters of historical accuracy, but when all those sympathetic to the Arab perspective PRAISE the book and all those sympathetic to the Israeli narrative DAMN the book, as appears to be the case, I think you've got a problem on your hands.
So you can have serious scholarship, if that suits you. Or you can have a book supporting the Israelis and their claims.
You just can't have both, emile...which is exactly what I've been saying.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 8:42pm
So perhaps that's why you've been so reticent about citing your sources. They make my case and demolish yours. Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 8:37pm | ignore this person | warn this person
nonsense. you don't know the book and you blabber on that it supports your one sided views. whatta joke.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:54pm
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 8:42pm | ignore this person | warn this person
you are a tendentious idiot.
I asked Juan Cole what book he recommended, and he named Smith.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:56pm
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/action/ignore.mhtml?who=rykart
this post is self contradictory.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:57pm
rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 8:42pm
this one. you draw conclusions from something you nothing about, a book you have not read. typical.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:59pm
you know nothing...
Posted by emile duBois at 01/07/2009 @ 8:59pm
>>> Allow Media into Gaza <<<
Why?
Does Rothberg or anyone here doubt that if given access to Gaza the "journalist" representing The Nation, for example, would not be submitting anything but anti-Israel diatribes?
Granted, the entire media is not as ideological as The Nation, but its many fake reports, fake photos, fake videos have invariably erred infavor of the Palestinians. To this day most people believe the 12 year old Mohammed al-Dura was murdered by Israeli sharpshooters at the Netzarim junction.
It was William Tecumseh Sherman who wrote:
>> I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast. <<
Let's not forger, during the Civil War a vigorous peace camp operated in the North. That war's opponents were called, Copperheads. They insisted that the North/South dispute had no military solution. They argued that in all decency, the South needed to be allowed to secede in peace. For a while in 1864 it looked like their candidate, General George McClellan would defeat Lincoln.
Suppose a modern media had operated at that time. Who here would have approved of broadcasts that nightly showed the Union the groans and screams of its wounded sons, the hills of amputated limbs outside the hospital tents, the ruins, the hunger, the agony of the South in the wake of Sherman's march?
Only the Copperheads would have approved. Because most of them, under their humanitarian pose, supported the South and slavery.
That is what most you guys are today. Your support of the media, and anti war hand wringing, your virtuous tears are as phony as those of yesteryear's Copperheads.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/07/2009 @ 10:01pm
There appears to indeed be a book on Palestine by Charles Smith.
Juan Cole may indeed have recommended it.
You might have just left it at that. But you go further, emile.
You claim to have READ this book, which the balance of evidence suggests is another of your lies.
You imply that Smith's book supports your claims about arab migrations, the Palestinians as actually Jordanians and several other calumnies which are trademark Joan Peters rubbish, whether you got it from Joan Peters or one of her innumerable Judeo-Nazi mynah birds. You didn't get it from Smith's book...that much is clear.
Juan Cole??!? The very person whose pro-Palestinian scholarship sent the pro-Israel goons into a tizzy, launching their successful bid to have Cole's Yale appointment denied, (much in the way Norman Finkelstein and others who refuse to toe the AIPAC line have been systematically attacked?)
I mean--this is getting a little laughable, emile.
Do some studying.
Don't run your mouth so much. It's only getting you in worse trouble.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 10:20pm
Who bears primary responsibility for the breakdown of the Camp David talks???
pro-Israel LIARS insist with one voice and with inspiring persistence that it was the Palestinians.
Scholars of ANY worth, know that is bullshit, including emile's scholar-du-jour, Charles Smith---who castigates the Israelis...particularly Barak and Sharon, and their US co-conspirator, the insufferable Dennis Ross, for their lies, duplicity, dishonesty. He places him self OPPOSITE Dennis Ross' phony Israeli orthodoxy, which he plainly holds in exceptionally low regard.
http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol12/0503_csbkr.asp
I second Juan Cole's sensible suggestion, emile. Please continue (or should I say, please START) reading Charles Smith.
Give Joan Peters a rest.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 10:42pm
In summation, emile..you present an unusual case.
You appear to have thoroughly digested (and are able to quote freely from) a book you claim never to have read, (Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial) while absorbing apparently zilch from a book you say you HAVE read, (Charles Smith's "Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict." )
Now that is just strange.
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 10:56pm
If you subscribe to Charles Smith's point of view, it hardly seems we have much to argue about:
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041502.html
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 11:26pm
here's Smith's letter in support of Norman Finkelstein:
http://tinyurl.com/9w46ef
Don't miss what he has to say about your buddy, Daniel Pipes---the clod you tried to pass off on us as a scholar supporting your demographic perversions!
any of this sinking in, emile?
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 12:05am
"Norman's scholarship has been endorsed not only by leading academics--Avi Shlaim of Oxford, Sara Roy of Havard, Baruch Kimmerling of Hebrew University, the late Raul Hilberg---dean of holocaust studies, (not to mention MIT's Noam Chomsky and many others)....
...If you write a single FACT, your argument falls apart."
Posted by rykart at 01/07/2009 @ 6:29pm
Instead of a single FACT I will give give you but one of many critics of Finkelstein's scholarship. Bartov is more or less with Finkelstein on the the Palestinian issue so he has no Zionist axe to grind.
Israeli Historian Omer Bartov, writing for The New York Times Book Review, judged The Holocaust Industry (Finkelstein) to be marred by the same errors he denounces in those who exploit the Holocaust for profit or politics:
"It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority... Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious."
Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Professor of German Studies at Brown University. Bartov was born in Israel and attended Tel Aviv University and St. Antony's College, Oxford. Bartov, a 1989 to 1992 Junior Harvard fellow and 2002 Guggenheim fellow, is one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of genocide.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/08/2009 @ 12:18am
Thanks for bartov...the quote you cite is rather representative of his review as a whole, that is, entirely without factual points of any kind, merely an assemblage of smears. Read it for yourself---there's not a single claim in Finkelstein's book that is even engaged with, much less refuted. Raul Hilberg on the other hand endorsed the conclusions of the book, claiming that if anything, they were too conservative.
Of course the bartovs of the world havn't been saying much lately, as Finkelstein has been totally vindicated on the thesis of The Holocaust Industry. Barely a day goes by that a new scandal involving the theft, deceit or misappropriation of supposed holocaust monies is reported in Ha'artetz, with the same gangsters Finkelstein attacks---Israel Singer, Edgar Branfman, and the state of israel implicated in ongoing crimes and misdemeanors.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 01:16am
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 01:16am
So uncle Normie pays you to promote him? Just check the folding stuff to make sure it's not counterfeit. Anyway here's another wrap up on Normie by Cathy Young, on Finkelstein by David Greenberg.
"Finkelstein also convincingly defends himself against allegations that he is an admirer of Holocaust-denying historian David Irving. Yet the overall picture of his record is nothing short of morally repugnant.
Arguably, the issue is not Finkelstein's morality but the quality of his work. In this area, Finkelstein has some backers with no apparent political axe to grind; renowned Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg has praised his research on the mishandling of reparation payments to Holocaust survivors. But it is worth noting that he has no publications in peer-reviewed journals--usually a requirement for tenure--and most assessments of his books have been scathing. Columbia University historian David Greenberg, no knee-jerk defender of Israel, called The Holocaust Industry "a hate-filled screed" filled with "pseudo-scholarship, extreme anti-Israel ideology and--there is no way around it--anti-Semitism."
Looks, rykart, as though you're backing a loser.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/08/2009 @ 03:06am
I see that we still have American land thieves,like Rykart,whining about Israel being land thieves while he and his buddies live on stolen land.What a bunch of hypocrites.They are thieves who are complaining about other thieves.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 10:01am
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 10:01am | ignore this person | warn this person
a somewhat valid point. However, there was no existing, internationally agreed upon body of law prohibiting the acquisition of land by war until the institution of UN resolution 242.
legal structures evolve---hopefully toward a more equitable and humane society with greater rather than less respect for the rights of all peoples, particularly indigenous peoples.
Res 242, for a host of obvious reasons, is not retroactive.
Israel has been in unambiguous violation of this resolution since June 1967, as all international legal bodies including the ICJ agree.
Would you like to do away with this provision, nobody?
lrjones posts more idiotic, ad hominem attacks on Finkelstein. Let's cut to the chase. Finkelstein makes a number of statements in the Holocaust Industry which are either true or false and can be very easily verified. The two most explosive points in his book are that a) the claims conference wildly inflated the number of holocaust survivors and b) having shaken down foreign governments for reparation monies, failed to distribute this money to the needy holocaust victims they claimed to be representing and instead, simply pocketed the money. Both claims are true and these facts have caused a huge scandal in Israel, (not to mention, elsewhere). A number of key lawyers involved in the scam are now being prosecuted.
So go ahead and claim that Finkelstein is a seething anti-semite--ludicrous though the idea may be. It still does nothing to refute the key facts of his book.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 10:45am
Mask at 01/07/2009 @ 4:50pm asked:
>> What do you call the Arabic Muslims who lived in pre-1947 region later partitioned to become the State of Israel? <<
Under the Turks and the British Mandate the only ones who called themselves Palestinians were the Jews. They gave their institutions names like, The Palestine Post, the Bank of Palestine, the Palestine Telegraph company.
The nationalism of the area's Muslims was Arab. They called themselves, the Arabs of Palestine and sometimes, south Syrians. They considered the identification as Palestinians, an insult, a trick, an attempt to tear them away from the Arab nation.
Hafez Assad once famously told Arafat, "You do not represent Palestine as much as Syria does. Never forget this one point. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria… the Syrian authorities are the true representatives of the Palestinian people."
All that changed after the loss of the West Bank and Gaza to Israel in 1967. Then the Arabs, and Arafat, himself born in Egypt of an Egyptian father, became Palestinians. While they had earlier been content to let Jordan and Egypt rule the W/B and Gaza, now they began to call themselves Palestinians who had been deprived by the Jews of of their independent country. That was when they set up a documentation center in Beirut with the aim of establishing a distinct Palestinian lineage.
But it never existed. There is not a single such text on their history, sociology, sports, the myths, the recipes, the songs, the literature, etc., of Palestine, none that predates the 1970s. Palestinians have nothing that marks them as a unique nation, that distinguishes them as different from other Arabs.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/08/2009 @ 10:49am
rykart-You are only proving that you are a hypocrite and until you leave this country you have nothing to say about the Israeli/Pal conflict that has any meaning.In the mean time you are just a thief who is whining about other thieves.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 10:50am
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 10:50am | ignore this person | warn this person
a ludicrous non-point. What you are essentially saying is that there should be no condemnation of slavery (for example) since it was once legal and white Americans today are in many respects beneficiaries of this hateful practice.
You're welcome to that view. I join most rational people in declaring it absurd.
To each his own.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 10:54am
osted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/08/2009 @ 10:49am | ignore this person | warn this person
By such reasoning, Mexico has a perfect right to ethnically cleanse Texas, as the Texans are merely "other Americans" with no claim to an independent status. Let them move to Philadelphia, or else, have their homes destroyed, their families and lives torn to pieces.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 10:59am
and who gives a crap what Asad has to say about Palestinian autonomy (assuming the quote has not been fabricated, as is so often the custom with pro-Israel vermin)?
So what?
Many orthodox Jews insist that Jews have no right to exist in the Holy Land--that they are in fact in blasphemous violation of Judaic law.
Nutrei Karta are the best known, but not the only such group of devout Jews.
two can play at that game. It doesn't change anything and it certainly doesn't address the current crisis in any meaningful way.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 11:10am
rykart-In other words,you plan on staying on stolen land while whining about others staying on stolen land.Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.You ought to read your posts before describing yourself as rational.You are a thief who is whining about other thieves and call that rational.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 11:13am
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/08/2009 @ 10:49am | ignore this person | warn this person
good post.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/08/2009 @ 11:16am
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 11:13am | ignore this person | warn this person
In other words, if tomorrow, someone burns your house to the ground and kills your family, you'll voice no objections, since your ancestors engaged in such practices and to condemn them would be hypocrisy.
Indeed, in the world you endorse, no one has the right to criticize anything. We shouldn't criticize the Nazis since our ancestors exterminated the Indians.
You'll probably find plenty of adherents to this ideology. Check the Yellow Pages. Regional nut houses would be a good place for you to begin gathering endorsements.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 11:21am
rykart-If I first burned down their house and killed their family then I would be hypocritical to complain.I noticed that you keep coming up with examples that are unrelated to the idea of land stealing.We did not exterminate the native population.Many remained which is why they still exist..You sure do have tons of excuses for your hypocrisy.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 11:25am
We did not exterminate the native population.
yes we did. we did not exterminate ALL the population. they are however still hugely disadvantaged, and we still are not living up to treaties that were signed.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/08/2009 @ 11:28am
emile-When I read or hear the word extermination I think in terms of total destruction,but you are correct.Extermination can be just partial destruction.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 11:54am
i'm nobody
where nations are concerned, there is no moral high ground. the British, I'm told "invented" concentration camps. the Belgians were unspeakably cruel in the Congo etc, etc, etc.
that america is and was a racist country is undeniable. that others are racist, the same.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/08/2009 @ 12:06pm
emile-That none of us has the moral high ground is,pretty much,the point that I was trying to make to rykart.According to his side the Israelis are living on stolen land,but so are all of us.That's like a wife beater pointing the finger at another wife beater.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 12:14pm
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 12:14pm | ignore this person | warn this person
The difference being, that the Israelis are actively stealing land today, right now, as we speak. They are destroying homes and expelling people.
..a niggling detail I wouldn't expect a profound philosopher like you to be concerned over.
Christ, this is tedious.
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 12:27pm
rykart-You are correct.Your hypocrisy is tedious.
Posted by i'm nobody at 01/08/2009 @ 12:31pm
Has anyone considered the possibility that all this argument is moot? Unless we're all very lucky, sometime in this century somebody, perhaps the Iranians, perhaps a non-state terrorist group, will set off nuclear weapons in Israel and everything from the Sinai to Damascus will be smoking, radioactive, uninhabited ruins. How should the people in the region prepare for this?
Posted by Mistral at 01/08/2009 @ 2:05pm
Posted by Mistral at 01/08/2009 @ 2:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person
fear mongering.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/08/2009 @ 2:10pm
But it never existed. There is not a single such text on their history, sociology, sports, the myths, the recipes, the songs, the literature, etc., of Palestine, none that predates the 1970s. Palestinians have nothing that marks them as a unique nation, that distinguishes them as different from other Arabs.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/08/2009 @ 10:49am
Hugo, Interesting post. Here's a question that keeps being danced around though. People have been living in that area well before 1970 and well before that. The British stuck their noses into the area and European influences tried to draw lines on the maps for their own interests.
I only throw this out for thought, but from the old testament, the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews. So, what was the Hebrews home before then?
That's the problem with this whole damn issue from my layman's point of view. Different people over the centuries have been in power and claim that they have divine rights to that land.
The problem is that we people are far from holy, and will kill, lie, steal and murder to get what the other guy has (the grass is always greener on the other side). If history tells one story over and over, that's it.
The bottom line is that innocent people on both sides are being killed because a bunch of phsycopathic fringe elements stir up the pot and keep the pot boiling. It's been going on a long time and probably won't end in our lifetimes since it hasn't over centuries.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 01/08/2009 @ 5:44pm
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 01/08/2009 @ 5:44pm | ignore this person | warn this person
not so fast. peace is possible, vide Egypt and Israel. Jordan and Israel. you are a mite too pessimistic here. no war can last forever.
Posted by emile duBois at 01/08/2009 @ 8:18pm
Wolfgang1 at 01/08/2009 @ 5:44pm asked:
>> from the old testament, the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews. So, what was the Hebrews home before then? <<
They were semitic nomads from Canaan, speaking a Canaanite language. Economic conditions drove a portion of them south into Egypt, the superpower of that time. There, as undocumented immigrants, they were channeled to a specific region in Egypt where some may have found work building Egyptian cities. This stay undermined their nomadic habits and developed the ambition to be masters in a realm of their own. Some probably returned to Canaan with that idea.
>> innocent people on both sides are being killed because a bunch of phsycopathic fringe elements stir up the pot and keep the pot boiling <<
I disagree. There is nothing crazy about persecuted people wanting to live in safety near the hearth of their ancestors and the wellspring of their faith and culture. Certainly not if there is plenty of room for all.
And it is not true that the pot is kept boiling by nutters on both sides. That attempt at balance is wrong and unfair.
One side, motivated by the Koran, has the openly declared goal of exterminating the other, and means it. That this has produced hard liners on the Israeli side is more than understandable, it is justifiable and necessary.
To survive Israel must show toughness and even roughness. When people come at you and your family, even only with rusty kitchen knifes, but are serious about slicing your throat and that of your family, you have every right to pull out a 9mm automatic and to pump as many bullets at them as is necessary to stop them. And if they use the innocent as shields, that still does not require you to sacrifice your family.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/09/2009 @ 03:07am
rykart at 1:10am wrote:
>> who gives a crap what Asad has to say about Palestinian autonomy? <<
If you don't give a crap and don't understand the the issue how could you have formed an opinion? The question was, how long have Palestinians been calling themselves, Palestinians and why.
Hafez Assad reminded Arafat of Syria's claim to Palestine that dated to the Ottoman centuries when the area was part of greater Syria and was governed from there. There was no barrier between people. The Arabs who lived in Jerusalem were the same ethnicity, language, religion, culture, currency, dress, etc., as those of Damascus (and Cairo for that matter). Until 1918 people lived in those places interchangeably. Then, for 30 years, the British imposed themselves over Jerusalem and the French over Damascus. But that did not change the people. By 1948 the Arabs of Palestine still largely thought of themselves as south Syrians, except for a substantial number who had migrated from Egypt or Lebanon, or from the Caucasus, Bosnia and Albania. The reason for those non-Arab immigrants was Ottoman misgovt that left marauding Bedouins and cholera epidemics unchecked. Depopulation followed. In the time of Christ the region had sustained over a million people. By the end of the 19th century Ottoman census records counted around half a million for the entire Holy land, including present day Jordan. In the almost 1,900 years since Jesus populations most everywhere had climbed exponentially. In the Holy Land it had collapsed. The Turks finally began encouraging immigrants (they even advertised). Their desperation was such that they accepted even non-Muslim like the Russian Jews who started coming in the 1880s.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/09/2009 @ 03:53am
rykart at 10:59am said:
>> Many orthodox Jews [like Nutrei Karta] insist that Jews have no right to exist in the Holy Land--that they are in fact in blasphemous violation of Judaic law. .. two can play at that game.
What game? What has Nutrei Karta to do with the issue of Palestinian identity?
In the face of inconvenient facts you go haywire.
>> Israelis are actively stealing land today, right now, as we speak. They are destroying homes and expelling people. << (rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 12:27pm)
It seems to me their current problem derives from having completely pulled out of Gaza. The Palestinians started shooting into Israel from atop the rubble of the vacated settlements, as the last Israeli jeeps were driving away.
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/09/2009 @ 03:58am
rykart at 10:59am said:
>> By such reasoning, Mexico has a perfect right to ethnically cleanse Texas, as the Texans are merely "other Americans" with no claim to an independent status. <<
rykart, your keyboard has the capacity to enter quotation marks. Please show, using quotation marks, the words in my post which your phrase,"By such reasoning" refers to?
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/09/2009 @ 04:00am
"lrjones posts more idiotic, ad hominem attacks on Finkelstein. Let's cut to the chase. Finkelstein makes a number of statements in the Holocaust Industry which are either true or false and can be very easily verified. ....…..So go ahead and claim that Finkelstein is a seething anti-semite--ludicrous though the idea may be. It still does nothing to refute the key facts of his book."
Posted by rykart at 01/08/2009 @ 10:45am
I think R, you open your self up to being ridiculed. Perhaps you are indeed big F himself. Whatever, you have completely missed the point being made, which is not about the subject of The Holocaust Industry at all, but using that work to show his inadequacy as a critic of Peters. The reference certainly was to that work but only to show that his own sloppy methods and prejudices, in that book, discredit him as a serious critic of Peters and almost anything else to do with the issues Peters raises.
In fact your intensity and obsessive hatred not only of the state of Israel but also of Jews in general, that won't behave as you think they should, revealed by your wallowing in the hatred Finkelstein unleashes in THI, gives you away. As it was virtually a done deal between the Brits and the Zionists long before the WW2 Jewish pogrom, what is the relevance of the holocaust to influencing the Jewish homeland issue? You missed the obvious point being made and instead got down in the gutter with Finkelstein for some more gratification in an orgy of Jew hatred? That is why I think you are a joke and not to be taken seriously on this topic because it is merely your excuse for denigration of the Jews.
Posted by lrjones4 at 01/09/2009 @ 05:28am
The only people denigrating Jews are the phony Jews of Israel who have habitually looked down their noses at Jews of the diaspora and attempted to define for the rest of us the meaning of Jewishness, namely to be a bloodthirsty, racist brute and lord your arrogance and military might over the defenseless population you have brutalized and dispossessed.
Small wonder decent Jews like Einstein, Primo Levi, Philip Roth, etc hold the Israeli ghouls (Einstein calls them "Nazis" and "Fascists") in utter contempt.
Half of Israel's journalists--at least the ones who have witnessed the Jewish state's barbarities in the OT, hold Israel in utter contempt.
Jews continue to be the single most outspokenly anti-Israel group on earth, even if far too many of us remain in thrall to that dismal failed state that has only brought shame and global condemnation on us. None of my Jewish friends and family have the slightest interest in ever setting foot in the septic tank known as Israel.
I doubt you're Jewish, LR. Fewer and fewer Jews express the sort of mindless, unqualified reverence for Israel that you do. It's more of a right wing Christian thing. The fact that you take Joan Peters' book seriously and believe that she has a lone detractor in Norman Finkelstein, (when in reality, she has been a running joke in the entire scholarly community for decades) tells me all I need to know about your qualifications to debate these matters.
Good day.
Posted by rykart at 01/09/2009 @ 11:27am
i was working in jordan recently and heard a lot of complaints about palestinians from jordanians - that palestinians tried to overthrow the jordanian king, that they are disrespectful and manipulative. Yet, I keep hearing/reading here that Jordan is a palestinian state, and other such things. forgive my ignorance but i am trying to understand: given the history since the 20s, what is/was "Palestine" and how does it differ from "Jordan"/Transjordan, etc????
Posted by voristrupp at 01/10/2009 @ 6:00pm
>>> PETER ROTHBERG <<<
France-2, the Paris TV network, broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year's Day.
The channel has now admitted that the events in that footage did not occur on Jan. 1, 2009, but in 2005.
Moreover, it also conceded that those dead Palestinian died not at the hands of the Jews but in an explosion when a truck loaded with Hamas ordnance detonated near the Jabaliya refugee camp.
France-2 has explained, that that footage was aired by mistake, "accidentally."
As you know, this is not the first such mistake by French media and by world media. These mistakes are invariably at the expense of Israel. How about protesting supposedly neutral and objective journalists and news organizations, who are acting as the propaganda arm of Hamas!
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/10/2009 @ 6:29pm
That's interesting. The NY Times and UN certainly have not withdrawn their report of 4 children found near starvation alongside their mothers and other massacred civilians---the survivors left to die of hunger and thirst while the Israeli Nazi scum looked on from their tanks.
Posted by rykart at 01/10/2009 @ 10:17pm
Israel disengenuously wants us to believe that they are being attacked by a sovereign power ruled by an organized government bent on the destruction of of their country. However, their iron-fisted ability to keep the world's press out of Gaza belies the fact that Gaza is nothing but a ghetto constructed and controlled by Israel. In the glaring light of their self-righteous actions in Gaza, how does Israel explain to the world the fact that in 2008 three times more Israelis were murdered by fellow Israelis than were killed by terrorists ? Why is Israel "teaching Gaza a lesson" now when Israeli deaths attributed to terrorism are at the lowest level in years?
Posted by TheMayor at 01/11/2009 @ 11:54am
TheMayor at 11:54am asked:
>> how does Israel explain to the world the fact that in 2008 three times more Israelis were murdered by fellow Israelis than were killed by terrorists ? <<
In 2001 more than five (5) times as many Americans were murdered by fellow Americans, than were killed by terrorists on 9/11.
Do you explain that fact ? Does it mean, ramming hijacked airliners into crowded skyscrapers is not really a such a big deal?
Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 01/11/2009 @ 7:10pm