And the world goes on while the US turns to BarBQ.

Burn crops for peace! /s (and shoot the fisherman too)

Excuse me Mr. Netanyahu, you have dirty uranium in your white phosphorus.

I don’t know what we can do to rein the Israeli gov’t in.
Tough talk won’t do it but the only lever we have is our financial support and we all know that is not going to be withdrawn. We have let this “special relationship” go on for so long that Israel just does what it wants and we can’t stop it.

Rather striking eh Eureka … how much food can they destroy.

One way to address settlements, Jerusalem and other issues would be for Israel and the Palestinians to have formal talks aimed at resolving these issues through negotiation and treaty. Another way would be for Israel to make unilateral concessions with no reciprocal commitments from the Palestinians. I think Siun favors Option 2, but it’s hard to see the Israelis going for it (or being strong-armed into it by Obama), and a genuine, durable peace is (IMO) far more likely to result from the first choice.

it’s wonder that anyone would take us seriously about the occupation of palestine so long as we continue our occupations of iraq and afghanistan.

Intentional long term starvation. What part of Gaza is a twenty first century concentration camp do people not understand?

Since Israel seems to have given up on (if they ever actually supported) the concept of a two-state solution and obviously they won’t grant the Palestininans a majority stake in a single state, what does that leave (elimination)?

Obama and Clinton’s public stance gives the appearance of being an improvement over past U.S. rubber stamping of Israel’s policies but if they aren’t willing to back it up with concrete measures such as a reduction of financial assistance it won’t amount to squat. I doubt if they intend to do that and even if they did Congress would never go along.

Gator … on what do you base your assumption?

I tend to always prefer treaty and negotiation – but parties need to then honor those treaties.

p.s. thanks to max for going to the west bank and reporting on what he saw.

When will the Gazans rise up and remove their oppressors?

You’re absolutely right and your tax dollars and mine are paying for this destruction of other people and will continue to until they are all gone.

“United Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided,” he said.

1) Don’t they read the Torah? Israel conquered the city someone else built it the fathers of today’s Palestinians its likely we need genetic tests.
2) the Torah based argument Abraham’s son the for father of the Jews stole the blessing that gave the jews the land. What kind of an all Powerful, and KNOWING GOD falls for that?
3) Conclusion Logically Its God’s will then that the inheritance be divide and according to our law the oldest kid gets the majority if he is acknowledged by his father. Which the Father of the Arabs was. Except for anything his father directly gives the second son.
Now then just what exactly was the second son promised is the question? Sorry my Bible knowledge is failing
Anyways Sorry Siun just tying to use Their own logic.
Bibi’s argument has holes that can directly question all inheritance based law in the Western World.

Max’ reporting is very good indeed – he has several reports on his site which are all worth reading.

cut off israel importing from other countries anything that can be grown and raised in palestine and make israel buy it from them.

that would change the conversation real quick.

All Israel money must be directed to Palestine to help them Palestine and the hate their condition brings is the biggest obstacle for peace.
Obama can Veto any bill that does not say this . We link Israel to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan we point out how many millions Israel has gotten and point out we could have spent this in America.

Sorry OT inspiration plus EPUed last thread! The blogs are a tree branching out just how long did I wait like a seed waiting rain before I dared comment? And how much longer before some commenter responded let alone really praised me?
Just how long before a front pager responded?
Talk about positive feed back loops
Sure we talk about the righty blogs censoring our stuff but with a little encouragement they might have got another regular?
Sure not one of us but how many wavering GOPers did they screen? And then shut out a more open group dynamic helps us grow.

Buying Gazan produce wouldn’t be anything new, just a return to the way things used to be.

Secret agreements with Bush are not law unless the Senate votes last I checked. Maybe we need a Senate vote and in this economy we link a yes vote to an equal amount of stimulus cash?

Why would the Israelis be burning crops?

when the survival of one depends on and determines the survival of the other, that is when it will end. either the interdependent way or isolate and die way. i hope the first.

don’t pick me to nit-pick with, maca. you know what i meant. when you have to be fed by your enemy you treat them a little differently. or would always be wondering how your food is poisoned.

they obviously found somewhere else to get produce since it’s pretty much not coming out of palestine anymore…

The people who built Jerusalem are not the fathers of today’s Palestinians. Those people are long, long gone.

so, who has the rights then?

No, I wasn’t nit-picking with you, dmac. I was agreeing with you. It used to be that Israelis and Palestinians were farming together on both sides of the Gazan border, mostly with Israeli ownership and Palestinian workers.
I would hope that with Palestinian ownership of land that the situation could be returned to where Palestinians and Israelis can work together, grow food together, and sit down and eat it together.

All people of peace and goodwill.

good. me too.

maybe it should be the international capital of the world, that way we all ‘own’ it.

Israel has spent decades creating ‘facts on the ground’ that make it harder and harder to achieve a two state solution. At some point the rest of the world has to say to Israel, “All right. The settlements have made it impossible for a viable Palestinian state to be formed. So unless you abandon the settlement, immediately, in their entirety, you must give the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Israeli citizenship, and the right to vote, in Israel.” Nothing less than full democracy in Israel, for ALL of the people of Israel and Palestine, will ever be enough to resolve this ghastly problem.

Most israelis would give up the West Bank in a heartbeat if they believed that Palestinians are sincere in desiring to live peacefully with Israelis as their neighbor.
No matter what some people writing here might want you to think, this was never a one-sided fight.

how dare you!

I’m too stupid to know how, mostly.

hey, i thought you were doin’ your annual retreat!

not here bein’ a smart ass!

take care, h/t to ya, birdman..be thinkin’ of you and the others tomorrow during the ceremony.

teddy’s late nite is a couple flights upstairs

You decline to specify the “actions” and “deeds” you want Obama to perform, so I’m just guessing, but the tone and content of your post lead me to believe you want Obama to make Israel make concessions to the Palestinians. But I could be wrong… So tell me, what are the “actions” and “deeds” you want from Obama?

Please don’t insult our intelligence:

Palestinian water crisis deepens
BBC: Monday, 20 April 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8007801.stm

How would I do that?

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/israel/

If the fighting ever stops, the money will be there.

DNA prove it we there are tons of digs out there I’m sure we can check

You do know the Torah states that Abraham is father to the Arabs as well as the Jews right? The Palestinians are Arabs last I checked?

The people who built Jerusalem weren’t Jews or Arabs. Lots of stuff published about this. DNA testing not really a necessity. The Arabs didn’t arrive until long afterward.

Look up Canaanites. There generally said to be the founders of Jerusalem.

And BTW, I think that the Bible is a pretty good book, but I don’t consider it to be a source for any valid deeds to real estate. If it somehow does award property, I would be best pleased with the part about the meek.

Mr. Netanyahu should just annex the West Bank and when the rest of the world complains he can say the Israelies need lebensraum.

The new administration is talking tough to Bibi and the Israeli government but will it follow through with actions?

Is a pig’s ass beef?

” The Ministerial Committee on Legislation has approved a proposed a bill banning the commemoration of Independence Day as a day of mourning.

The bill was originally proposed by MK Alex Miller (Israel Our Home). It addresses the increasingly widespread practice, by Arab citizens of Israel, of marking Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning, or Naqba Day.

The proposal would forbid public events or activities marking the very creation of the State of Israel as a “catastrophe” (naqba, in Arabic). The maximum punishment for violators would be three years in prison. “

http://www.israelnationalnews……spx/131533

I don’t think it’s a good idea to fuck with Obama, and I wouldn’t want to be the Netanyahu who tried it.

i started to ‘go there’-water–earlier but couldn’t find the map i wanted—in peres’ biography, battle for peace: a memoir, there is a map of water lines, existing and proposed, with other countries in that entire region..palestine is right on top of where they have to go. it’s always been about water/resources.

Water has always been the limiting factor. In the deal that Barak offered, where he said that the Palestinians would get something like 97% of the West Bank, and some other “make-up” land, the Israelis were grabbing most of the water.
I don’t know that it need be always.

The Palestinians arrived from the north at about the same time Abraham arrived from the East. Neither were truly Arabs. The Palestinians were from the area around Crete I believe, and Abraham was from the city of Ur, which would have made him possibly of a Persian type ethnicity. The Arabs were indigenous to the region I believe.

yep, but what i am talking about is a map that i was shocked was in peres’ book..it was a map of existing and NEW pipelines, and it went through palestine.

i gave my copy to my dad, but i remember it because i pointed it out to him and we talked about it.

rarely do you see an addendum like that in a book that isn’t discussed in that book. only as a ‘diplomatic history’ reference..was strange…i still think he was dropping a breadcrumb..a big one.

i’m curious if that map is in the newer editions of the book.

I’m going to try to give it a look as it sounds interesting. I just ordered a copy of the book’s 1995 edition.

good, it’s been a long time, i want to read it again…i don’t pass books onto my dad unless they have something specific thati want him to read/feedback.he already has his own interests and reading list..lotta diplomatic fluff talk in it, but there were some things in there where i said, whoa. made me listen to his pressers, listening for the same kind of hints.

what i gathered is, not existing water but future water. treaties. at the time i thought, o h good, palestine will have a stake in the resources, in the success of the area…then when they started building the walls,guess where they started building them? it wasn’t to keep guerrillas out, it was to keep a non-cooperative palestine out of the way.

dad has always told me, because they are without resources, palestine will lose.

this map, when printed, was already ‘old’, a far-reaching plan..’an idea’, a task-force kindof thing. but it was too ‘finished’ to be just that.
when i read it, i think in ‘98, the implementation dates seemed far off, but that was ten years ago..seems like someone there, in palestine, would have known about it. now i would have to see the map to see if they are on the strategic acreage anymore..if not, they’re screwed, with no voice at the table, cuz everyone will want the pipeline to succeed. it stretched for thousands of miles and down..lot of countries involved.peres was involved in it. the map wasn’t put in there for a textual reference, he downplayed the whole thing in the book, then why was it in there? wasn’t a mundane map, not if you know anything about treaties and history.

dad said back then that they would never build a pipeline under palestinian-controlled land, no matter what the map said. that they would just wait. i said what do you mean? he just looked at me..i said, ohhh.

because they are without resources, palestine will lose.