contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger.

and if they don’t leave to avoid the danger, that just proves they weren’t noncombatants. /s

Who will throw a bit of holy water on these witches of hate?

He must have read his daily bulletin from the National Information Directorate from Israel. This is the spin and propaganda ‘machine’ that the Israeli’s were working on 10 months ago. They send out daily media messages to sway public opinion against the Palestinians. Horror of horrors, the US politicians and MSM are repeating the lies word for word.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..ne-pr-spin

ersatz edit:

Who will throw a bit of holy water on these witches and warlocks of hate?

equal opportunity, we are. ;-)

If he looks like that in a photo, wonder what he looks like in person?

slight correction to #3…set up 8 months ago…

We are all trying to T-Bear. The truth is being exchanged through the internet all around the world. It just leaves me numb sometimes when thinking about the MSM’s refusal to tell the truth. They won’t, so we all must. I am hoping for a tipping point; a point where the MSM can no longer keep lying to the American people. The Israeli media is open to criticing the Israel government, but the US MSM is scared shitless, bought off, or both.

I have learned one thing lately that disappoints me. The majority of the so called progressive sites in the US are not focusing on the truth of what Israel has done, and is doing now, to the Palestinian people. Shame on them all.

A quick google says that you were correct the first time; and the second time. Male witches is commonly used, warlock is not. Your original and your correction are therefore both correct.

bluebutterfly, I read the Guardian article. A few comments.

First, it’s well-known that both sides in the conflict employ their own information sources (example). This is nothing new, in this conflict or any other. In fact, I defy you to name a country that doesn’t have an organization dedicated to releasing information.

It gist of the Israeli claim is that their attack is in response to the Hamas shelling (missiles and sometimes mortars) during the cease fire. Now, I would never accept only one source but in this case other sources, including the Guardian, the New York Times and others, are independently reporting that the Israeli closures of the West Bank during the truce and the attack after the truce are both in response to Hamas shelling.

So I ask you then, what is your source for believing otherwise?

Here is an excellent background article, “Understanding Gaza,” by Tony Karon, one of my favorite commentators on the Israel/Palestian conflict.

If he looks like that in a photo, wonder what he looks like in person?

Is he ever seen while the sun is out?

Even if he only comes out at night, he needs a dresser *and* a personal shopper……that jacket looks like it came from walfart.

a disclaimer: I have and am living abroad. Throughout the time, no american news source has been relied upon for information. The difference is now a mountain of propaganda and governmental obfuscation. It is what americans must surmount to reach reality, the world cannot reach you, your borders are mostly sealed against that being disseminated to the common citizen there who continues in an information induced coma. There are bright spots, but they are rare and can be overwhelmed easily, just be turning up the noise of disinformation will do that. The history from which context, continuity, and consistency can be used in assessment and judgment really do not exist there in any meaningful measure. The enormity of the chasm that has happened since I moved from is of the magnitude of alternate alien universe at this point. Even the language is alien to greater degree. This alien universe has now become something 180ø from that which I had lived my life.

Is he ever seen while the sun is out?

Only in Dracula Strength Sun-block, (the zinc oxide paste). ;-)

Let’s extend Mr. Krauthammer’s logic. If you warn someone you are going to murder him, and subsequently do, you are not guilty. So a stalker is the most responsible person of all, giving all sorts of warnings.

Part of the reason for his strained appearances is that he is disabled:

He later moved to the United States, where he attended Harvard Medical School. In his first year there in 1972, Krauthammer was paralyzed in a serious diving accident.

Read his whole wiki. It’s fascinating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Krauthammer

He needs no stinking medal of freedom,he has something infinity better, his own love. After all, who could replace Krauthammer as the best judge of Krauthammer’s wisdom? ὕβρις is all he has.

How’s your son?

Cynthia McKinney…”We lived to tell the story, Lebanon rescued us”.

She tells of their rescue by Lebanon boats that were sent to find them. She credits the three Al Jazeera reporters on board who called the Israelis as the incident was happening. One of them, Sami El-Haj had been held at Guantanamo for 6 years. She mentions that CNN’s reporter, Karl Penhaul, was reporting the truth even as CNN was reporting Israeli information.

http://www.opednews.com/articl…..1-305.html

Have you ever come across the term “straw man”, this seems the tree up which you are barking.

The following are two links, first establishes the facts and a background, the second reports on the failure of the Palestinian Authority’s plans to divert the resource to Israel, and the subsequent Israeli economic warfare on the Gazan population to destroy Hamas politically to regain control of a $4 billion resource. Palestinian Authority’s President, Mahmoud Abbas, controls Fatah which is unable to politically displace Hamas. Both the Palestinian Authority and Fatah are fatally corrupted and are unacceptable to the Palestinians and were voted out in Gaza. The missiles formerly being fired were not much general concern other than nuisance but were massaged into terror, much like 9/11 was.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/i…..8;aid=9136

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9245.shtml

if this doesn’t work..her letter is at opednews under the “We lived to tell the story etc…

http://www.opednews.com/articl…..1-305.html

This is a “struggle” which goes back more than 6 decades to the period of the west trying to set up nations states to manipulate for imperial purposes.

Jews lived in the region, but they did not have a theocratic militaristic state. That was created by the west with the excuse that the jews deserved a state of their own as a refuge from intolerance and oppression. How about just stopping the oppression in your own “states” and letting people live in peace and practice their religion… as opposed to letting theocracies run the lives of “non believers” or those who don’t subscribe to “voodoo”.

The excuse for Israel was really a cover to have the US exploit the region for oil and supply billions of dollars of weapons. MIC needs markets so WE lend these nations money and THEY have to buy our weapons with the loans which goes directly to the MIC. I doubt the electronic funds transfers even stop for a minute in the region but go straight to Northrop Grummen, Boing, Ratheon and so forth.

We taxpayers have been had for decades with this “defense spending” because the world is a dangerous place, WE ARE MAKING IT DANGEROUS.

We send our capitalists in to countries to steal resources, exploit labor, turn subsistance farming to petroleum based export crops. We go in and knock down forests to set up beef factories for MacDonalds. We install oppressive governments. We support drug trafficking to make billions of black profits to use for weapons and other illegal activites. We blockade a country which is no threat to us. We assassinate at will, blow up civilian plans, habor terrorists such as Bosch. We excel at alienating the people of the world while currying support from the oligarchs (as long as they do our bidding – remember Noriega who dared to act on his own).

We do all this and more will spewing proapaganda about democracy and freedom and “free markets” and innovation and raising living standards and prattle on and lie. The only living standards which have been raised are the wealthy – bigger yachts and jets and more homes and so forth.

A class war was waged on the workers and the poor for almost a century with roots going back to fuedalism by the rich of world against the poor. They embraced marketing and consumerism and providing distraction to the middle class and dreams of wealth to keep them distracted while the stealing and the genocide went on unabetted.

The west excelled at slavery. The colonies succeed because the crown oppressed them but went on to keep their slaves and continued to oppress and steal from the Native Americans. We excel at oppression and lying about who we are. And when I write who we are I mean we are the government. We pay the taxes that end up in nukes, in bombers, in cluster bombs, in tasers. Our taxes support torture, blackwater, and our congress makes the world “safe” for exploitation by corporate america. We buy the products produced by slave labor, not knowing, or when we do often doing so because we seem to have no choice.

The economic ponzi scheme of fractional banking and credit on top of exploitation of labor and direct stealing of resources has now run out of suckers. It will continue to spiral down as created “wealth” is destroyed.It never existed at all. What is left will be the assets and the absence of energy to sustain the machine, the manufacture food and transport it. We have so moved away from a sensible sustainable model of society that we will not be able to recover from this spiral down.

The killing is only beginning. We are buring the furniture in the house to keep warm. Then we will take others houses to use for fire wood to keep our houses warm.

This wasn’t W’s doing or the republican’s doing but the capitalist’s doing which believed that greed would be the motivation for growth and innovation to keep the ponzi scheme going with ever increasing markets and resources. All you need is innovation and people who want to have “a better life” and the ponzi works.

We’ve seen discovery and innovation and we certainly see that greed runs through the veins of almost all humans. We seen the notion of personal ownership of land, or a house extended to the right of a nation to invade another to protect its “vital interests”.

We proclaim the sanctity of life and we execute people even when innocent because of “procedure” or house millions in concrete boxes and torture them, many for victimless crimes like drugs instead or helping them with useful activities. We make money from running prisons. We being some of us. The rest of us dutifully pay taxes, and “serve” our nation in the armed forces.

The poor aren’t feeling the pain of the economic meltdown. They have been living a life of suffering from cradle to grave. It’s the rest of us who were sold the bill of goods that we would have a life of work and retirement, of travel and enlightenment and so leisure. We thought if we played along we get ours and be able to live a bit better than the previous generation. We thought cell phones and LCDs and PCs were evidence that life was better. Watch all that blink out over the next 10 years. Who is going to pay $1000/yr for connectivity or TV? Certainly not unemployed who are looking for their next meal.

Who is going to buy electric cars? Who is going to the movies for $10 or a baseball game for $50 or a concert for $100? All of this will shrink and then disappear. And the anger will rise and the killing will become rampant.

Humans: very very poor planners.

Hiya Raven.

He’s on his way back to Redstone Arsenal today; will graduate in late January, and may or may not have time to unpack his gear at Fort Hood before heading off to the sandbox.

He still loves it, but somehow all that personal responsibility he’s acquired over the past several months seems to fly right out the door when he hits the Indianapolis city line. I really didn’t see him all that much when he was here on leave. Too busy for family.

So I’m a bit pissed, but he looks great, likes himself again, and is doing a very good job while he’s there. #1 in his class, got a Soldier of the Month thing, etc.

I’m kinda glad he’s headed back to Alabama, where somebody will be telling him what to do 24/7.

heh.

Proportionality?

Israel starves & imprisones millions, then kills 400+ in response to a few Israelis killed?

Thank you for your answer..

Ha, when I got out my old man had built a room in the basement for me. I told him to forget it. It took until my 30’s to go home for holidays and stuff like that. Wish I could have those times back.

Wow..Applause! Applause! Applause!

yeah, he’s still got a lot of growing up to do, but he’ll get there.

I hope.

It’s not only U.S. and Israeli news outlets which report that the Israeli border closures and attack are in response to Hamas rocket attacks. It is also found in foreign sources such as previously cited from the Guardian Guardian.

In fact, one article I found in the Guardian which is generally CRITICAL of Israel, nevertheless admitted that the Israelis have closed border crossings during the cease fire in response to Hamas provocations:

“A six-month ceasefire, or a period of “quiet” between Israel and Hamas, exists in name only. The current volley of raids and rockets started on November 4 when Israel said it uncovered a tunnel Hamas was planning to use to capture soldiers. Israeli forces have killed at least 10 Hamas gunmen, and as the rockets rained down on Sderot and Ashkelon, the gates of Gaza were locked.”

I can also cite a Dutch language source (I’ve also lived overseas for many years) indicating that rockets were being fired while the ink was still wet on the cease fire.

So I ask once again, what is the source of your belief that the Gaza border closures and the current Israeli attack are NOT a response to Hamas provocations?

And Hamas rockets are not a response to Israel’s imprisonment of all of Gaza?

Ummm, the tunnel wasn’t in violation of the cease fire. Israel doesn’t know what it was going to be used for (hamas has a ton of tunnels, since the Israelis, even when they have the borders “open” don’t really.) On the other hand, attacking because of the tunnel was a cease-fire violation, since it killed people. They could have simply said “we note you have a tunnel at X. Collapse it, or we’ll collapse it.”

Actually, even many Israelis say that Israel broke the truce by attacking the tunnel. They may or may not think it’s justified, but the attack was a cease fire violation, tunnels were not listed in the the things Hamas can’t do.

Morning. My wish for 2009 is that men like CK are treated with disdain. Let them all own the Bush failures.

Morning. My wish for 2009 is that men like CK are treated with disdain. Let them all own the Bush failures.
Including (especially) FoxNews.

How would you like to live in the Warsau ghetto? The jews who should no better having had their people slaughtered in the Poland in WWII. It was they who were inside the walls with guarder crossings and it was they who resisted the oppressors. How easily they forget and how hollow their claim to never forget (the holocaust).

The Israelis as a US surrogate are working their darnedest to exterminate the palistinian people who have lived in that region before MOST of the jews in Israel set foot on their “homeland”. The jews like the american “colonists and settlers” are doing nothing more than displace an indigenous population along with killing them with military force.

I frankly don’t care who decides to live where. I would hope people can respect their neighbors even when one has different religious beliefs. You don’t IMPOSE you craziness on your neighbors. You mind your own effing business. What the Israelies and the US have done to these people IS criminal and a human rights violations,

Are rocket attacks wrong? You betcha. But when there are no options left for a people to survive what would be a wrong thing to do? There’s no good choices for the oppressed… no high moral ground except to take the abuse until you are dead. That’s the moral high ground.

Morning all, where is the coffee?
436 hrs & 39 min

We live in a world we on action is met with a reaction. This can lead to a back tracking to the initial action which upset some apple cart.

Along with the action – reaction – reaction never ending spiral is the notion of escalating the response. This is supposed to tip the balance toward the last response and hopefully prevent another response.

This is a very very primitive way to resolve conflicts, but it is the model the USA embraces. Witness the DOD and their escalating series of weapons systems.

No one can take a breath long enough to drink any with this astounding analysis of the world!

OT Looks like C-span is going to have some clown on to argue that liberals keep saying that conservatives can’t run anything. He is going to talk about conservative successes. (Mathew Continetti sp)
436 hrs & 29 min

He has the same barber as Blago
436 hrs & 24 min

For the better part of a century, Zionist leaders and their surrogates (via Hasbara) have painted those they seek to murder as “sub-human.” This has served to indoctrinate a killing force with the amoral predisposition to kill actual humans, perceived as animals, thanks to persistent brainwashing over the decades:

“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” — Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 [Source: N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1]

“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

“The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” ” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

“When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

“We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

“We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.” Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces – Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.

“We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return” David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

What you don’t know that every US Congressman knows is that Israel is blackmailing the United States, and as such, stands unopposed in its efforts to transform the Middle East into Eretz Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates, using your tax dollars and the blood of your sons and daughters to accomplish it. Their accomplices here in the United States are guilty of treason.

Mr. Krauthammer and his co-conspirators would proclaim that daring to post the foregoing quotes is itself anti-Semitic here in America, while praising every word of them privately among their own cabal.

Mr. Krauthammer is in fact an agent of Hasbara:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

These are all simply facts. The hot rhetoric and insinuation that will follow – seeking to destroy the messenger, does not change these facts.

Good morning, pups. It’s Bobo and Krugman today. Bobo apparently has a crystal ball. He’s babbling about “The Sidney Awards” today, saying that as essays become op-eds and op-eds become blog posts, the Sidney Awards, which recognize long-form journalism and thought, stand athwart technology, yelling stop. He then proceeds to list winners of the awards. Hmmm… If you go to The Hillman Foundation’s home page you learn that “Nominations for 2008 awards are now being accepted. Postmark deadline is January 31, 2009.” So Bobo adds seer or crystal ball gazer to his other “talents.” Mr. Krugman says our problems are “Bigger Than Bush,” and that forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years is a consequence of that decision. It’s about time somebody of his stature called them out.

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and the biscuits are out of the oven. It’s time for me to go and start peeling carrots, onions and potatoes for the pot roast I’m putting into the crock pot for later. Have a great day.

Morning!

yeah–
7:30am – Matthew Continetti, Weekly Standard, Associate Editor
on Conservative Successes
8am – Mary Beth Maxwell, American Rights at Work, Executive Director
8:30am – Newspaper Articles & Phone Calls
9am – Matthew Lee, Associated Press, State Department Correspondent
Israel’s Gaza offensive could create headaches for Obama

I love your countdown! I’ve satisfied myself with 18 days, but yours is much more precise!

“Jews lived in the region, but they did not have a theocratic militaristic state. That was created by the west with the excuse that the jews deserved a state of their own as a refuge from intolerance and oppression.”

It’s okay, you can say the word: holocaust. It was Harry Truman more than the west, and it was due to the holocaust and not “intolerance and oppression,” (which existed long before and after the holocaust), but generally you are correct. And Jews were immigrating to Palestine before, during and after the holocaust, and where else would they go? It is true as you yourself say that there were already Jews living there (though I don’t try to pretend that they were more than a minority), and it’s also true that Palestine was once the historic homeland of the Jews. Is it terribly surprising that Jews flocked to the place after something so incredible and devestating as the holocaust?

“How about just stopping the oppression in your own “states” and letting people live in peace and practice their religion… as opposed to letting theocracies run the lives of “non believers” or those who don’t subscribe to “voodoo”.”

Well, you could just as easily be talking about any of the Muslim states. I’m not religious myself, and I often have sharp disputes – with Muslims, Christians and/or Jews – centered on religion which I generally view as a problem in the world. But most Muslims, Christians and Jews strongly disagree with my view, and the fact of the matter is that we all need to deal with the facts as we find them and not as we wish them. I agree that Israel is a theocracy and I agree that this is an unfortunate, unhelpful fact. But it is a fact. And it is also a fact that most of the Muslim countries are also theocracies and, in my strong opinion, far less tolerant than Israel.

“The excuse for Israel was really a cover to have the US exploit the region for oil and supply billions of dollars of weapons.”

In the 1940s?? C’mon! Anyway, the U.S. wouldn’t have needed Israel for any such reason immediately after World War II.

The rest of your post gets off topic.

The Jews and the Muslims don’t get along. Ethnic cleansing exists in Israel (and much of the Arab world) for the same reason that NATO discovered that they must accept it in the Balkans: because people just don’t get along. The idea that Muslims and Jews will live together in a multiethnic state is pure fantasy. I’d love for it to be otherwise and were it not for religion (all of them, not one of them) perhaps it COULD be otherwise but, as I’ve said, we have to take our facts as they are, not as we wish them to be.

And then there’s T-Bone, talking about the gas field. Okay, there’s a gas field . . . I don’t care if there are diamonds directly underneath Hamas headquarters, the evidence nevertheless points to Hamas as being the party primarily responsible for the breakdown of the cease fire. In fact, one would think that the presence of valuable gas would help encourage Hamas to avoid confrontation with Israel, so that they could reap the benefits of the gas in the future . . . but then, Hamas operatives are slaves to their own ideological beliefs which center around conflict with Israel.

eCAHNomics asks “and Hamas rockets are not a response to Israel’s imprisonment . . . ?”

Then why do they enter into a cease fire in the first place? Listen, people keep talking about proportionality, that the Israeli response was too harsh a retaliation for the generally ineffective rockets and mortars. But then why did Hamas bother with rockets to begin with if they are so ineffective? I believe the answer is that their deeply held religious convictions don’t allow them to have peace with Israel. If you can think of another answer, let me know. And in any case, some of the sources I have previously cited indicate that Israel closed the border crossings after Hamas rocket attacks so no, I don’t believe the rockets were fired in response to the closures.

Ian Welsh takes a legal approach to the November conflict, saying that the truce didn’t prohibit Hamas tunnels. First, I have to assume that the tunnel involved was different than the ones leading to Egypt, though I admit that the article doesn’t specify. Assuming it was directed at Israeli positions, that would certainly be provocative. Second, that was merely one example from November, the truce was broken already in the same month that it was initiated.

How would I like living in the Warsaw Ghetto, SanderO asks. I’d hate it. And I hope I’d have been brave enough to sacrifice my life to kill a few Nazis. So does this justify Hamas’ rocket fire? Well, it does if you accept Sander’s statement that Israel and the U.S. are trying to “exterminate” the Palestinians. However, I don’t hold that view and others will need to make up their minds independently – I don’t believe it can be proven one way or the other.

We can talk all we want about historic wrongs. The fact now is that Israel exists. The surrounding states are Muslim. The Jews and he Muslims don’t get along. The Palestinians deserve a viable state of their own, with everything implied by the word “viable.”

The issue is how to get there. If it is true that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel (by the way, is there anyone who disagrees with that?), then they certainly complicate things. And firing rockets at Israel is also supremely unhelpful.

Here’s your answer from todays paper.
An Israeli warplane dropped a 2000# bomb on the home of on of Hamas top decision makers instantly killing him and e i g h t e e n o t h e r s . If that doesn’t bother you that’s the problem. Who were the eighteen who worth less than any Israeli?

I tuned in late to WJ. What’s the short version of W success?

Guess you don’t know anything about nationalist guerilla warfare.

The surge & medicaid part D
Jeebus these guys are setting up for the ultimate & innevitable Iraq failure.
436 hrs & 19 min

OT-MSNC is getting a bit ridiculous, no? They just keep playing the same shows over and over.

lower taxes, lower inflation, lower unemployment.
medicare drug benefit

Geez, I thought we got rid of this concern troll yesterday.

lower unemployment

They’re kidding, right?

Thanks foothillsmike & Elliott.

Guess I can’t email a zinger, as the response to those assertions is too complicated for a couple of sentences. But I’ll work on it.

I agree that some of those quotes are deplorable. (Although, I ask you this regarding the Ben-Gurion quote regarding Palestinian refugees, do you disagree that their return would effectively destroy Israel? Is it reasonable to expect Israel to do a thing that would result in it’s destruction?). I assume you agree with me that I could present you with just as many deplorable quotes from the Arab side. Again, the issue is how to move forward.

Regarding your suggestion that the Israelis are determined to take land “from the Nile to the Euphrates,” I note that none of your quotes support such an absurd hypothesis. Again, the issue is how to move forward, based on fact and not breathless hysteria.

Terror was selected by the leadership of Israel as a tactic:

“The Koenig Memorandum”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Koenig_Memorandum

Israel is a state sponsor of terror, by its own government’s policies.

he does work for the Weekly Standard, you have to have exhibit a high degree of delusion do that.

Gave it a try. Here’s my email to cspan:

How is it that the Bush Administration created fewer jobs during 8 years than any other post-WWII president, especially considering all the monetary and fiscal (wars, Medicare expansion, etc.) stimulus that occurred during his time in power?

Nations come and nations go. Nation move from autocracies to socialist “paradises” or from democracies to facism (more common).

Israel has become a mistake, even if it wasn’t intended as one. The ME is composed of moslem centric theocratic “states” mostly created by the Brits when they took over from the Ottoman empire.

I can’t say that moslem and jews and christians can live side by side, practice their religions and have a just civil society. But if we want to cling to religions there are only two options. Ethnically cleansed theocracies or enlightened democracies which observe religious freedom and tolerance.

My sense is that both the religionists basically are about ethnic cleansing as they can’t accept other religions in their midst. That’s unfortunate. But that’s also something that democracies should not support.

To me that means COMPLETE disengagement from theocracies. No commerce. We need to not buy their oil or sell them pepse, or mercedes. Let them find their way. Let those who want to leave come to live in secular societies of tolerance and send the religious nuts to the theocratic states they want – even pay their relocations. Fundies ya here that? Go move to the holy land!

That’s exactly what the USA did in Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, even Granada! That’s war!

“Here’s your answer from todays paper.
An Israeli warplane dropped a 2000# bomb on the home of on of Hamas top decision makers instantly killing him and e i g h t e e n o t h e r s . If that doesn’t bother you that’s the problem. Who were the eighteen who worth less than any Israeli?”

I believe that “war is hell” is a very old quote, and for good reason. You cannot wage war and prevent civilian casualties, that is simply fantasy. All the more reason why Hamas should not have violated the cease fire.

But both sides kill civilians, you know that. Again, the issue is how to move forward. If it is true that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, then moving forward will be very difficult. Perhaps that is why Israel is trying so desperately to destroy as many Hamas commanders as possible, even when collateral damage is severe?

Gee, concern over the annihilation of people is breathless hysteria
436 hrs & 3 min

I am for the destruction of the Zionist state.

I am for the creation of a secular state where the jews, moslems and christians on the land covered by Israel, Gaza, west bank and Jordan

oh good! hope to hear it…

Swim’s up

That’s why they’re called concern trolls. Persistent, like a case of antibiotic resistant syphilis.

I ask you this regarding the Ben-Gurion quote regarding Palestinian refugees, do you disagree that their return would effectively destroy Israel?

Blacks taking over did not destroy South Africa. Palestinians might change the country’s name if they took over, but that’s different from destroying it.

Eretz Israel HaShlema

In his Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, said that the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” The “Brook of Egypt” may be another lesser waterway about 100 miles East of the Nile. Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947: “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

The Revisionist Zionists, an ultra-nationalist Zionist group, openly stated that the establishment of a Zionist state in Palestine was impossible without violence and the forcible transfer of the indigenous population. When war broke out between Britain and Germany in 1939, Avraham Stern argued that the British were the main enemy. His “Stern Gang” was a secret Zionist organization that operated in Palestine under the British mandate. It carried out attacks against both the British and the Arabs. The British killed Stern in February 1942. Stern’s “National Revival Principles” proclaimed a Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates. Later named Lehi, the group was dissolved in 1948. One of the three leaders of the Stern Group was Yitzhak Shamir, who became prime minister in 1983 and whose tenure in the highest office in Israel was second only to Ben Gurion. But Revisionists in later years viewed the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon in strategic terms, not historic ones. In 1989 Shamir called Syrian leader’s Hafiz al-Asad talk on the subject of “from the Nile to the Euphrates” to be “sheer nonsense.”

By the end of the 20th Century, Avrom Shmulevic’s tiny Bead Artzein (For the Homeland) aspired to a Nile-to-Euphrates Israel, as did Ahavat Israel, but between them these marginal groups numbered no more than a few hundred members.

Eretz Israel does not mean “Greater Israel”. Eretz is simply the Hebrew word for “Land”. The term Israelis of the right wing would use is “Eretz Israel HaShlema”, ie the “whole” or “complete” Land of Israel. This term is not applied by Israelis to the land grant to Abraham, from the Nile to the Euphrates. Nor is it applied to the rather smaller area said to have been occupied by King David or King Solomon. Solomon’s kingdom stretched through modern Syria to the banks of the Euphrates, covering and area vastly greater than the modern State of Israel. The western boundry of these kingdom’s ran barely further to the west of modern Israel, and thus did not approaching the Nile but did reach near the “Brook of Egypt”.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/…..israel.htm

Yelp and one of those Babies,you refer to as collateral damage, was going to grow up to be in Hamas. Nip it in the bud so to speak?

I ask you this regarding the Ben-Gurion quote regarding Palestinian refugees, do you disagree that their return would effectively destroy Israel? Is it reasonable to expect Israel to do a thing that would result in it’s destruction?)

this is something i really don’t understand. if palestinians were allow to return – as is there right – the only thing that would be destroyed is that israel would probably no longer have a majority of it’s citizens jewish. but why should the demographic nature of a nation be given moral primacy over the rights of the people who live there?

is that not an abomination?

very serious question – i really don’t get it.

“I am for the destruction of the Zionist state.”

And I am finally mostly at a loss for words. Why would you be for the destruction of the Jewish theocracy but not for any of the Muslim theocracies? At least SanderO treats them alike. It’s puzzling to me that you desire only the destruction of the Jewish theocracy.

The theocracies exist in response to facts on the ground, specifically the fact that the region is full of religious zealot on all sides. You will never see secular states in the region until/unless the mindset of the Muslims and the Jews change so profoundly that I can’t see it happening in many lifetimes.

But yes, there are people like you who advocate only for the destruction of Israel. That is why Israel devotes itself so diligently to it’s military.

my apologies, my typing is always bad, although sometimes worse than other times. this morning i’m blaming it on a lack of coffee…. which is going to be corrected momentarily.

“Blacks taking over did not destroy South Africa. Palestinians might change the country’s name if they took over, but that’s different from destroying it.”

Blacks wanted equality. Hamas wants the destruction of Israel. There is no similarity.

Mods: I find gretemike to be offensive please do not allow this person access

Israel is not a democracy. That’s a myth. All people who live there do not have equal rights.
The reason that the right of return is fought is that the jews would be voted out of control of the state so they have to maintain the higher proportion of jews there and call it a democratic state. It’s not – it’s a theocracy.

The jews will expel arabs and import jews, encourage jews to have big families. They cannot survive in a democratic secualr state with their religious needs of “eretz israel” or greater israel.

How did the colonists do with their original 13? Remember manifest destiny?

“this is something i really don’t understand. if palestinians were allow to return – as is there right – the only thing that would be destroyed is that israel would probably no longer have a majority of it’s citizens jewish. but why should the demographic nature of a nation be given moral primacy over the rights of the people who live there?

is that not an abomination?

very serious question – i really don’t get it.”

If a majority of Israel’s voting citizens were Muslim, then the rights of the Jews would not be protected. Have you not noticed that Jewish places of worship are in short supply in Muslim countries? I really don’t get why you expect that people who profoundly hate each other will get along and live in peace. That was actually the vision for the Balkans, but NATO eventually learned that ethnic cleansing is the only way to ensure peace. Ethnic cleansing isn’t nice, but it’s nicer than open warfare.

I don’t care for any theocracies and would favor secular democracies. However, when you have a region or homogeneity those people can live however they want. I think this is true in Bhutan, for example.

The problem with Israel is that this was not an exclusive jewish area. And there is no reason for it to be a state which favors one religion.

If the jews want to live there they need to live with christians and jews and not impose their mishigas on others.

“Mods: I find gretemike to be offensive please do not allow this person access”

I believe, T-Bear, that you are the one who threatened me with bodily harm in another thread. And yet I am not offended by you. In fact, I thorougly enjoy this debate.

People not wanting to hear the opinions of others is, I would suggest, part of the problem. If you don’t like what I’m saying, present an argument as to why I’m wrong.

not that my opinion matters, but i disagree.

i think this is an important issue to discuss and i’d rather call people on the offensive things they say rather than shut them down. that is also the way i’d like to be treated.

The state of Israel will not be satisfied until the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is Arab free. This was the goal of the first settlers allowed into the Mandatory and was the underlying goal of Irgun and Haganah, which is now the IDF.

“The problem with Israel is that this was not an exclusive jewish area. And there is no reason for it to be a state which favors one religion.”

Believe it or not, I agree with you without reservation.

But it is a state, isn’t it? I was born in 1970, Israel as been a reality all my life. Again, the issue is how do we move forward based on the facts that now exist?

Israel is a crock of crap at this point.

The short answer of this is to get up and go where you can live in peace. Why live where you are not wanted? Now this might seem that a people can be hounded into the sea because no one wants them.

But this is not the case for most religions. Jews can live in Europe, north America, South America, Austrailia with virtually no problem. Of course there are locally racists bigoted areas you want to stay away from. But to demand to live where you are not wanted or demand others move away so that you can live there in peace is too bizarre.

How about if the UN guarantees religious freedom in the ME for all?

I was born in 1947 and there was no Israel and it can be changed. The zionists are causing too much trouble, I am sorry to say.

In actual fact anti semitism was of European (christian) not Islamic origin. Jews and arabs got along before the christians stirred it up.

How about if the UN guarantees religious freedom in the ME for all?

Talk about a worthless guarantee
435 hrs & 39 min

In Moorish Spain the Jewish inhabitants were protected by the Muslims until the Christians drove both from the country. Now it’s the Christians and Zionists driving the Muslims from their country.

Mike, you seem to think that nations don’t come and go and change. Where were you in history class?

Where did Venezuela come from? Where did Austria come from? Where did the Czech republic come from? Where did Bangledesh come from? Where did Taiwain come from? Where did Yugoslavia come from? Where did it go? Why is there no Kurdistan?

Nation states are constructs. Borders are artifical politically drawn, changed and erased.

Israel has turned out to be a bad idea with some very good people there who tried to make it work and a whole lot of zionist racist nutcases who act like nazis. Deny that.

Basically my view is screw all religions, all they do is fight with one another and waste lots of resources in the process.

I can not get over how much Krauthammer looks like Mortimer Snerd. You really should always run their pictures side by side. And what a coincidence that they both should exhibit the same metal processes.

Or just use Mortimer’s picture instead of the stock photo. The identity of the post’s topic will always be immediately identifiable.

thank you for the reply. sorry for the delay, i was away from the thread…

lots to unpack, i’ll take it bit by bit:

If a majority of Israel’s voting citizens were Muslim, then the rights of the Jews would not be protected.

probably true if it were to just magically happen without preparation and a process to insure the rights of minorities. halper and abunimah have written about this, abunimah in particular has written a book on it. these are people and writers who’s ideas deserve to be taken seriously. i’ve asked bev to consider inviting abunimah here for a book salon – i hope that happens, i think it could be an important conversation.

bottom line – there are ways to do it so that everyone rights are protected. that is what i advocate: the protections of everyone’s human rights, not the rights of one group at the expense of another.

aside: if you think it’s only about muslims (btw, i disagree), are you advocating for the right of return of christian palestinians?

Have you not noticed that Jewish places of worship are in short supply in Muslim countries?

is that true in tehran? was that true prior to the establishment of israel? was it better or worse for jews in arab states before or after 1948?

I really don’t get why you expect that people who profoundly hate each other will get along and live in peace.

because i have seen israelis and palestinians working together – that is why i still hold out hope that hate does not have to endure if justice, tempered by mercy, is pursued instead.

That was actually the vision for the Balkans, but NATO eventually learned that ethnic cleansing is the only way to ensure peace. Ethnic cleansing isn’t nice, but it’s nicer than open warfare.

i think nato was wrong.

Gretemike is part of the MEGAPHONE Israeli propaganda operation. He argues behind of from a polite and courteous facade. He is a troll with the appetite of a glutton, and he is all over the web defending the indefensible. Don’t waste your time, you will never convince him if you argue from a basis of truth, decency, morality or humanity. These concepts are foreign to him and those like him.

Jesus B. Ochoa
El Paso, Texas

i disagree.

first, i don’t know gretemike, so i’d rather assume good intentions and be disappointment than jump to negative conclusions.

second, this is an important topic of conversation and there are people who are part of it who we don’t see. there may be lurkers who agree with gretmike is someways and when we engage on the issues we are advancing that conversation.

finally, i have a friend who hasn’t wanted to talk to me about this issue for over two years (because i used the term “slow motion ethnic cleansing” to describe what was being done to the palestinians). she is a good person and i’m not sure she doesn’t think about these issues similarly to the way gretemike does. my preference is to talk things out – not to shut them down.

I think the poster you replied to was speaking from first hand knowledge regarding this individuals use of Megaphone software to promote the Hasbara agenda.

That’s not just any old individual stating their own opinion, that’s a concerted propaganda agent using the tools made available for that purpose by Mossad.

well, without evidence to support that claim, i’m going to take him at face value.

Thank you, T-Bear. Your writings and the links you gave answered a lot of questions for me:

(1) Q: What is this current conflict really about?
A: Gaza’s gas field, 90% licensed to British Gas Group (BG) and Hamas’refusal to be gulled out of it by Israel and Tony Blair, the Economic Hit Man sent in to gain control of Gaza’s resources. He failed, so next the jackals in the form of limited bombings used together with cruel cut-off of food, medicine, aid from sympathetic human rights groups, etc. This mastery method also appears to be failing, so next comes massive military invasion.

Isn’t this the same procedure used by U.S. to gain mastery of Iraq? Is the same grand schemer at the controls of both?

My thanks also to bluebutterfly, Sander O @ 21&35, eCAHNomics @29, and Ian Welsh @ 30.

I perceive these things but dimly, please enlighten me wherein I am mistaken.

Do you “assume good intentions” of Dick Cheney? Give him the benefit of the doubt?

If there’s one thing we have hopefully all come to learn in recent years, it’s that people intent on doing us hard count on people like who who assume the best of them in order to get away with it.

When people hide or destroy the evidence, they can bamboozle people like you who insist on giving the benefit of the doubt in the absence of “evidence.” I used to be just like you. Then I started seeking the truth, and learned all I need to know about how these operatives function, and on whose behalf.

They would have me thrown in prison for expressing my opinion…and as they tighten their grip on cyberspace under the false flag of the war on terror of false cries of “anti-Semitism,” – you will be powerless to defend my right to speak my mind and reveal their tactics – for fear that you will be labeled a “sympathizer.”.

Mark my words – it’s coming.

I think all of us, myself included, are beginning to get a bit circular, repeating some things that have already been said.

My biggest disagreement with most of you in this forum stems from the question of what happened during the six-month cease fire. In my opinion, based on what I’ve read and seen in U.S. and foreign mainstream media sources, is that following the cease fire Israel closed off Gaza at various times in response to Hamas provocations. Many of you seem to disagree with that, though I haven’t seen anyone cite a source to the contrary. Viejolex, I think the content of my posts demonstrate that I have tried to “argue from a basis of truth,” individual readers can read my posts and make up their own mind. I am deeply troubled by the frequent disdain I’ve seen here for mainstream media. It’s been dismissed with little supporting evidence, replaced with opinion. It reminds me of some of my right-wing acquaintances, who dismiss the same media sources because they don’t reflect their own silly right-wing beliefs. If there is no generally trustworthy mainstream information source, then all conversation ceases to be meaningful, and not just debate but negotiation itself becomes impossible. If that’s where we are, then perhaps Israel’s heavy-handed tactics are more rational than many of you will admit. I would urge you all to reconsider your rejection of mainstream media sources.

If I am correct that Hamas provoked Israel during the cease fire, and that the closure of Gaza was in response to those provocations and not vice-versa, then the question becomes why on earth did Hamas do that? In my opinion, they did so because hatred of Israel is so ingrained (indeed, Hamas exists for the destruction of Israel) that they lose face if they aren’t lobbing missiles every now and then.

Now if I am correct about that, then peace while they are in power (or at least while they maintain their unwillingness to coexist with Israel) is not much better than fantasy.

I am amazed by how many of you want to see Israel cease to exist. First of all, I find it troubling that you would view Israel’s theocracy as more problematic than the numerous Muslim theocracies. Second off all, I simply believe it is unrealistic that a state as militarily powerful as Israel can be dismantled by any sort of outside pressure. Indeed, I maintain that to do so, particularly to a state founded by holocaust survivors, is extremely dangerous.

So Israel will exist, whether you like it or not. That means there must be a two-state solution. But in order for there to be a two-state solution, the Hamas side must negotiate in good faith. And how can that occur as long as they seek Israel’s destruction?

Military might HAS caused othwerwise uncompromising belligerents to come to heel. It occurred recently against the Serbs in Kosovo. It occurred long ago against Nazi Germany and Japan. It’s hardly far-fetched for the Israelis to believe that they can likewise bring Hamas to heel. I deplore death as much as the rest of you, but unlike the rest of you I place a great deal of importance with Hamas’ unwillingness to coexist with Israel and their apparent breaches of the cease fire. That is the crux of my disagreement. Selise is correct that the attitude of the Muslims towards the Jews was far better prior to 1948. But accepting that statement doesn’t bring us closer to peace. Israel is a fact, and there will never be peace with any government that refuses to accept that fact. Hopefully at some point long after we’ve all died, Jews and Muslims will be able to fully coexist and there won’t be any theocracies anywhere in the world, but I don’t imagine that happening any time soon. For now it is more rational and manageable to strive for a viable two-state solution.

Gretemike:

Are you an agent of the Hasbara program? Are you familiar with Megaphone software?

I opened the DIGG and commented there.
pup34

“Gretemike:

Are you an agent of the Hasbara program? Are you familiar with Megaphone software?”

*sigh*

I really hope that’s a rhetorical question. But I think I’ve said what I came to say, the people reading this will need to make up their own minds.

Charles needs psychiatric help!

Proportionality?

Israel starves & imprisones millions, then kills 400+ in response to a few Israelis killed?

I’m glad we Americans would never do that.
The Chinese must be ver confused by all the consternation. They would never worry about limiting themselves to a proportional response.
These days the self-control of the Russians in Georgia are perhaps the best example of a proportional response. That’s a little scary to consider.

There is simply violence and it’s no way for either side to live. Somehow they have to come to realize that and save their children from death or a perhaps worse fate of living their entire lives in this same state of violence, fear and death.

If they never forgive or forget it’s alright. But, they all must stop the violence and put some space between themselves. If those with rockets are too close they must be pushed away. Perhaps a peace treaty would even include Israel committing to some border space within Israel remaining unoccupied to extend the space. Of course, the ‘wall’ which creates a DMZ should probably be completed.

Time may heal wounds, but to get that time they need some distance.

These are all simply facts. The hot rhetoric and insinuation that will follow – seeking to destroy the messenger, does not change these facts.

Facts shmacts. Israel exists and will continue no matter how hateful some of it’s citizens are. Palestinians exist and will continue to live alongside Israel. Peace is rarely reached by spewing venom into someone’s face, so your post is pretty irrelevant. Both sides (I suspect) already know what you’ve written and the same could likely be said of the other side.

They need peace, not facts.