Barack Obama has been busy – offering the Jewish People blessings for Rosh Hashanah, and recording a flattering video for the President’s Conference in Jerusalem and another for Yitzhak Rabin’s memorial rally. Only Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah surpasses him in terms of sheer output of recorded remarks.
In all the videos, Obama heaps sticky-sweet praise on Israel, even though he has spent nearly a year fruitlessly lobbying for Israel to be so kind as to do something, anything – even just a temporary freeze on settlement building – to advance the peace process.
Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this. In other trouble spots, America takes a different tone. It bombs in Afghanistan, invades Iraq and threatens sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Did anyone in Washington consider begging Saddam Hussein to withdraw from occupied territory in Kuwait?
But Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives different treatment. Another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.
#28,
Sure… it is widely known that only the radical left has a monopoly on truth. If Mr Levy is speaking the truth than I am a chinese ballet dancer.
#29,
Mmmmm…. No.
oh yes! hilary clinton is telling palestine to come to the negotiation table when, clearly, it doesn’t want to because of the israelis wanting to build settlements on what is clearly negotiatied palestinian land. i think joe lieberman demands it, if we in the u.s. want a public option for health insurance.
then the LIEberman gets all flustered when some palestinian independence fighter practices guerilla tactics, gets to be called a terrorist in the u.s. by fox news, and then feigns that it doesn’t understand why their policies fail.
Named #30,
For the love of God!
First and foremost, you do not know what I did for Israel. Suffice say I did my part – fair?
Second, calling an insane individual an insane individual is not character assassination. I ain’t looking for cheap shots here, I am just calling the dog a dog.
As for his “accolades”… any Israeli that wants any “accolades” should follow a known and well established method – bad mouth Israel for a sustained period of time and you will get them. The Europeans will be among the first to give it to you. No one gets excited from these type of awards anymore – neither the right nor the left.
“His service” – what service? the man was a political aide! and then became a radical leftist self-hating reporter on what is commonly known to be the leftist/rich bastion of Israeli journalism! The Haaretz newspaper are an elitist group that care more of the newest fashion from Paris than what is really going on in the middle east. Things have gotten so bad with this “news paper” that the leftists themselves have begun publicly criticizing it and abandoning the paper in droves.
If Gideon Levy is FOR Israel then who is against it?! 😀
Why, its a no brainer. The Jewish lobby is entrenched in US government and has been for decades. Powerhouse campaign contributors from Hollywood, publishing and large corporations headed by Jews are the reason. Money rules Washington.
33 Jopa,
For the love of God? Which one?
“Suffice say I did my part – fair?” I guess so. Maybe you were a participant during the Purim spit fest, so yeah, I guess you did your part. 😛
Anyhoo, as for Gideon, he did win a respectable award, didn’t he?
Jopa,
Please explain why Jews build “settlements” on Palestinian land and why the Hebrew state sounds like the new South Africa?
The Jewish one! 🙂
Purim Spiting fest?! are you talking about some moron orthodox jew spitting on people of other faith? People who do that are fu*king idiots.
I do not spit on other people because they have a different religious faith and I do not care for people who do such things.
I am sorry, this is not a respectable award. This is an award given by extreme leftists to extreme leftists. Sugar coating it with a “Human Rights” title doesn’t make it respectable.
#37 Answer the question in #36, Jopa, if you want to be taken seriously.
37, Jopa,
I thought the Roman ones… oh well.
Israel is a state with a humanitarian sized problem. The Arabs and Jews lived together in one happy Semitic family. And now, thanks to the British in 1919 it is completely fubared. And thanks to people who report for the occupied, the ones that have no voice, freedom and now even less water, they deserve recognition.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the condemnation of Israel here. Apparently it has committed some grievous sins such as being an ally of the United States and being unafraid of defending itself. The problem some nations have with Israel is if they are messed with Israel will kick your ass and not apologize. That is so brutish in this polite leftish world.
I admire their guts.
As Bill #23 said “If anyone owns the US it is Saudi Arabia….”
Look until Israel recognises UN Resolution 181 it doesn’t matter.
They are a rogue state that Europe and the US has ignored and allowed to fester.
It should return to an international governed zone until the parties can come to an agreement.
Cursor_
Whoa, I thought Hussein Obama was sucking up to the terrorists? It’s hard to keep up with you right wing ding dongs.
When will you settle on a position on anything?
Wow! Double standards from the left abound on this thread and the one about John Bolton. A couple of thoughts for the Israel haters here:
1. Please define, using facts, how Israel is the new South Africa. Please remember, there were no Palestinians before the Zionists created agriculture in the region in the 19th century. There were Syrians.
2. I think Sharansky’s “3 D’s” are a good litmus test: Delegitimization of Israel; Double standards when judging Israeli actions; Demonization of Israel, particularly misrepresenting all it has done for peace and to improve the condition of its minorities. To his 3 D’s, I would add “decontextualization” – ignoring the context for Israel’s actions and drawing moral equivalencies between Israel and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which would probably fit in Sharansky’s “demonization.”
Please feel free to continue to spew venom based on a 62 year effort on the part of the Arabs to change the media view of Israel to their view. Remember, the vaunted UN, based on Britain’s claim of the land and granting, legitimized the creation of Israel. ALL NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES IMMEDIATELY ATTACKED! Please bother reading the BBC’s Israel history section. The BBC, anti-Israel, even keeps the records you ignore. Before the Arab nations all attacked, they told what are known as the Palestinians to leave so they would not be harmed and they could return once the Zionists were destroyed. Israel won and suddenly there were these refugees that Jordan did not allow to take the land as laid out in the UN charter…
Ignorance of history causes idiot humans to repeat it.
#38 – will be happy to.
#36 (jpfitz) – this is a good question and I will do my best to answer it honestly.
In contrast with south african Apartheid, in which white people decided to racially discriminate black people because of their skin color, the Israeli palestinian conflict is based on a century of war between two nations striving for their own state on the same land. To answer your question we must put it context.
Jews are not foreign occupiers in the land of Israel. This has been our land for a few thousand years. Throughout our history we have fought, won, lost, been conquered by and exiled by many kings and empires but we always came back to this land that is called Israel. Truth be told, it matters little if this god or that god promised this or that – it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that this little, mostly dry desert with some green lands and water in the north has been the only place we called home throughout our ~3,500 years of history. Over the last few centuries, arabs from all kind of arab lands came here and settled bit by bit. Today they live here too and they are called palestinians.
In 1948, the UN decided to split the land between the Jews and palestinians. The Jews accepted, the palestinians with arab backing rejected it. The arabs vowed to destroy us and drive us “into the sea” several times but failed. In 1967 during the six day war we decisively defeated them and took hold of additional land belonging to Jordan, Syria and Egypt – the Jordanian lands that fell under our control are known today as the “territories of the west bank”. One of the Egyptian territories that we took control over is what is known as “the gaza strip”. These tow places are where the palestinians live.
In essence, what you are witnessing is a single, prolonged, ongoing, slow war that peaks from time to time, between the arabs and the Israelis and the arabs are losing.
The act of building homes in the territories of the enemy is something both sides strive to do and the fact that it is happening on arab land and not on jewish one is the result of us winning and them losing. This does not make it right but thats the way it is.
Now, we should add another ingredient into this “joyful” mix. Its called muslim religious extremism and Jewish messianism. On both sides, these extreme groups are driven by their illusionary fantasies that they can kick out the other people. The arabs try to do it by sending suicide bombers blowing up children and women and firing rockets on our villages and cities. The jews try to do it by settling in arab territories and cutting down arab olive trees. Brilliant! isn’t it?!
So here you have it: we wanted a state, they refused to share, they wanted to kill us, they lost. We won, we build, all the world hates us, we lose.
Today, the majority of civilians on both sides want peace but no side wants to back off from their demands and both sides have lunatics that destroy any hopes for peace. When we begin talking, they send suicide bombers. When these kill our women and children we strike back by bombing them and building settlements. We build settlements they in turn send more suicide bombers and on and on we go…
The only good solution is peace in which we separate population and swap lands. This is also the one thing that no one seem to be able to do. Poor Obama… 😉
Honest to god, this is the truth.
@44
“So here you have it: we wanted a state, they refused to share”
LOL, you said “they” refused to “share”.
Sounds like you feel that your side is entitled to make them share if they don’t want to share, and if they don’t share then you “take” by force.
In the Ten Commandments, there is a word for this.
It is on the list of 10 things you aren’t supposed to do.
Cursor and HMeyers,
Bother actually reading the UN Charter? Did the Arabs ever live up to any portion? Ever? Really? Any part of it?
Go read it here
#45,
This is only true if you believe that the land belonged to them. Alas, it didn’t. No side had exclusive ownership. The land was ours for thousands of year but we lost it. However, there were always jewish communities in the land – long before any arabs arrived. Arabs migrated here in small numbers during the last few centuries and we migrated here in large numbers in this century. It was the arabs that rejected the Jews, not the other way around.
Following your “logic”, the land is ours – we were here first!
And this is exactly the “logic” extremists on both sides have: “we were here first! NO! we were here first! blah blah blah!!!”. Doesn’t change anything.
When the oil is gone from the region you people will be free to kill each other to your hearts content and no one will give a shit. I look forward to that day and wish for its speedy arrival.
#48,
By all means, let this day come quickly as it has only one meaning – no more war (and clean air). It also means that the arabs will lose. No oil = no money to buy weapons and wage wars. Israel never had any oil and we are not economically dependent on it.
Clean energy FTW! 🙂
@47
I don’t actually subscribe the concept that land ever belongs to anyone.
I was more attacking the idea of the extremely twisted justifications of entitlement.
I mean, you can call forcing people off their land whatever you like and claim all kinds of “rights” to do it, but it is still stealing.
But I tip my hat to Israel in a “survival of the fittest” kind of way while acknowledging that perhaps Islam as a religion that condones lesser rights for “infidels” probably deserves to have you guys living in their neighborhood, haha.
It is really poetic justice for both sides.
Thanks for the history lesson, Jopa, as it’s all too obvious that the majority of commentators here haven’t a clue.
#50,
I understand what you are saying and I agree that people always “eat” what they “cook” 😉
Fate does like to serve humanity with the dish of poetic justice, doesn’t it?
By the way, what’s happening here is not that different nor unique in terms of human history. It happened numerous times and is still happening in other parts of the world. It is just a contemporary conflict that is extensively covered by the world media. This coverage gives it more “uniqueness” then it truly deserves.
Bob #51,
Thank you, you are most welcome.
@46 ethanol
“Bother actually reading the UN Charter?”
Uh, the United Nations never owned any land.
So exactly how was the United Nations entitled to give what they did not own?
Very courteous of those 40 or so European countries that made up the United Nations back in 1948 to give away land in the Middle East that people were living on.
What could possibly go wrong??
And as we can all see, that idea worked just great!
@ Jopa
Just for clarification, I’m not “against” Israel per se but against propaganda.
I guess you have to live in the world that has been handed off to you.
In my experience, propaganda causes long term cultural damage to a society because it creates emotional conflict both inside and outside.
But maybe there is no alternative in Israel’s situation, the creators of said situation have long since been deceased ….
You can blame Muslims for being anti-Israel but you cant blame the Europeans who voted Israel as the number 1 threat to the world peace.
Of course, the Israelis always have the “Oh we’re so hurt” card to play in the media all the time. For the last 60 years they have been killing women and children. Its always the threat to the world peace, and its been sucking the US for the last 60 years. You dont need to have a PhD to understand that Israelis have always been the main troublemakers all this time.
The only country in the world, which doesn’t has fixed borders….
@ Hmeyers (#55),
look at #56 – zorkor (a true “genius”).
You said you hate propaganda? Here you go…
Genesis 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
The single most criminal nation on that fce of the earth, the country ignoring the most UN resolutions, the country with the most civilians trapped in primitive conditions…you don’t have to be anti-semetic to want them zapped.
No more crocodile tears, no one has oppressed you for half a century. Either stop being the world’s most dangerous rogue state or kiss your asses goodbye. Obama is not going to protect you…Iran WILL end this problem, and the world will cheer.
@ Jopa/58
Since I believe all religions are essentially the same and all humans essentially the same, hence all differences between people to be an illusion …
It doesn’t matter which side has the irrational argument, it is the presence of THE irrational argument that is the problem.
Irrationality leads to argument, conflict and violence.
Thus, irrationality is the enemy of peace.