Lost Faith in Israel

[Alien]

The nature of the conflict is such that if you take a stand on the matter (whatever that may be), it will be biased to either of the two. Whether its Settlements, Jerusalem, refugees etc.

Personally I don't find western media to overtly pro-Israeli as many points out. TIme to time they do show Palestinian perspective such as checkpoints, poverty in Gaza, impact of naval blocade, and during 2008 "Cast Lead" operation, they heavily covered Israel's blunders.

If anything I find Al Jazeera biased because they never show Israel's point of view.

[Alien]

Had a look at Netanyahu's page, full of Evengelical stooges thinking they are special because they can suck-up to Israel. One reason why Israel is where it is today is because of the amount of pro-Israeli promoters preaching nonsense to people who are don't even know where their country is on a map. So you have that plus the Islamophobic zeitgeist which creates the dangerous cocktail of right wing fanatics that run the powerful conservative circle of US politics.

http://www.facebook.com/Netanyahu?sk=wall&filter=12

So while the world runs after "mullahs and Jihadist", these Jewish and Evangelical extremists which are currently in power in Israel and has a major grip on US continues to thrive and supplement the hatred against not just Palestinians but Muslims around the world.

I think best things Palestinians can do is start playing the same game as Israel.

1) Since Israel doesn't like Palestinian extremist Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas should make it a point it does not deal with a Israeli coalition that would include the Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu party who advocate continuation of settlement. That would be fair as extremists are boycotted both ways.

2) State that East Jerusalem is the eternal capital of a Palestinian state and integral part of Muslim/Arab world.

3) Stop running to Washington at Obama's every whim. Either meet him at UN or ask him to come and brave the checkpoints at Ramallah for a change. Or even better send Saeeb Erakat to meet him.

Israel is determined to ensure that:

1) A peace deal never takes place
2) if it at all does, it must get most out of it (recall Netanyahu's proposal to setup interim Palestinian state on 40% of West Bank).

PA must avoid both. Once a deal is reached there is no turning back hence it has to be made and also be made on EQUAL TERMS.

[Zunaid]

Love 1 and 2. About 3 - at least Obama is trying. Why make his hand even weaker and give the neocons and neozionists even more fodder for distractions?

[Alien]

Originally Posted by Zunaid
Love 1 and 2. About 3 - at least Obama is trying. Why make his hand even weaker and give the neocons and neozionists even more fodder for distractions?

As president he needs to break with the 63 year old tradition of unconditional support with Israel. I am not saying go completely pro-Arab (which is suicidal), but start demanding boldly what they expect of Israel while giving just enough to give the neocons happy.

Also at the same time not disregard the international community's stance on the issue, not just what Israel and US neocons think. The upcoming General Assembly vote is a significant opportunity for US to side with rest of the world instead of being isolated on the other side with Israel.

I don't doubt Obama's intention but he or any future US president needs to tackle it wisely and take the "bold steps" as he puts it in his speech.

In his speech he said:

Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them — not by the United States; not by anybody else.

Peace can be imposed by United States. It costs them $5 billion a year to arm Israel so it can be "secure", a significant amount. A peace deal will secure Israel while saving US a big chunk of that $5 billion. US would have had a decent health care system if that money was dumped there instead of shipping it to Israel.

So he can't really wash his hand of the problem and expect the duo to sit down one morning and discuss peace. By doing so, he is not being bold enough himself and while adhering to status quo that has stalled peace process for over 3 decades.

Someone needs to break the stalemate and there is no one else but US and more specifically the president of US.

So firstly he needs to be bold enough to tackle Israel and make an attempt to break the pro-Israeli mindset and secondly he needs to make sure that peace deal can be seen favorably else it wont hold in the long run.

Like I said few posts up, Palestinians don't have much to give aside from recognition which Israel can live without. So the strength of a peace deal depends on how much Israel is willing to give. Right now its meager.

[BanCricFan]

http://

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[Zunaid]

BCF - what do the videos have to say? For those who do not wish to waste time wading through seconds of a media clip only to realize the lost time cannot be recovered. It would be nice for everyone to introduce the summary of what we are about to see and if the videos have a particular POV to also say something about what their own views are.

[BanCricFan]

Zunaid,

Insha Allah, will bear that in mind in the future. Was in a bit of a hurry last night.

[F6_Turbo]

So Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is going to be released today(within the next couple of hours) after 5 years in captivity, and in exchange, 1000 Palestinian prisoners will also be released in two phases.

Lots of contentious issues....

-1 Israeli life is worth 1000 Palestinian, no wonder they don't consider the palestinians to be human
-Convicted, and self confessed murderers are being released to regain this 1 soldier
-On the other hand, innocent Palestinians arrested just on suspicion as opposed to proof will also be released.
-Internally victim families in Israel are irate with their government

Fun times!

[NoName]

Israel shot itself in the feet with that deal, on the plus side the guy is fit and well, mentally and physically, to the dismay of alot of Islamophobes out there. Theres quite a few differences between Hamas and Al Qaeda.

[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by Alien

Peace can be imposed by United States. It costs them $5 billion a year to arm Israel so it can be "secure", a significant amount. A peace deal will secure Israel while saving US a big chunk of that $5 billion. US would have had a decent health care system if that money was dumped there instead of shipping it to Israel.

So he can't really wash his hand of the problem and expect the duo to sit down one morning and discuss peace. By doing so, he is not being bold enough himself and while adhering to status quo that has stalled peace process for over 3 decades.

Someone needs to break the stalemate and there is no one else but US and more specifically the president of US.

So firstly he needs to be bold enough to tackle Israel and make an attempt to break the pro-Israeli mindset and secondly he needs to make sure that peace deal can be seen favorably else it wont hold in the long run.

Like I said few posts up, Palestinians don't have much to give aside from recognition which Israel can live without. So the strength of a peace deal depends on how much Israel is willing to give. Right now its meager.

well said.

[F6_Turbo]

Why Not in Vegas?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: July 31, 2012

I’ll make this quick. I have one question and one observation about Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel. The question is this: Since the whole trip was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political whims of the right-wing, super pro-Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn’t they just do the whole thing in Las Vegas? I mean, it was all about money anyway — how much Romney would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear and how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney campaign in return. Really, Vegas would have been so much more appropriate than Jerusalem. They could have constructed a plastic Wailing Wall and saved so much on gas.

The observation is this: Much of what is wrong with the U.S.-Israel relationship today can be found in that Romney trip. In recent years, the Republican Party has decided to make Israel a wedge issue. In order to garner more Jewish (and evangelical) votes and money, the G.O.P. decided to “out-pro-Israel” the Democrats by being even more unquestioning of Israel. This arms race has pulled the Democratic Party to the right on the Middle East and has basically forced the Obama team to shut down the peace process and drop any demands that Israel freeze settlements. This, in turn, has created a culture in Washington where State Department officials, not to mention politicians, are reluctant to even state publicly what is U.S. policy — that settlements are “an obstacle to peace” — for fear of being denounced as anti-Israel.

Add on top of that, the increasing role of money in U.S. politics and the importance of single donors who can write megachecks to “super PACs” — and the fact that the main Israel lobby, Aipac, has made itself the feared arbiter of which lawmakers are “pro” and which are “anti-Israel” and, therefore, who should get donations and who should not — and you have a situation in which there are almost no brakes, no red lights, around Israel coming from America anymore. No wonder settlers now boast on op-ed pages that the game is over, they’ve won, the West Bank will remain with Israel forever — and they don’t care what absorbing all of its Palestinians will mean for Israel’s future as a Jewish democracy.

It is into this environment that Romney wandered to add more pandering and to declare how he will be so much nicer to Israel than big, bad Obama. This is a canard. On what matters to Israel’s survival — advanced weaponry and intelligence — Defense Minister Ehud Barak told CNN on Monday, “I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing in regard to our security more than anything that I can remember in the past.”



While Romney had time for a $50,000-a-plate breakfast with American Jewish donors in Jerusalem, with Adelson at his elbow, he did not have two hours to go to Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, to meet with its president, Mahmoud Abbas, or to share publicly any ideas on how he would advance the peace process. He did have time, though, to point out to his Jewish hosts that Israelis are clearly more culturally entrepreneurial than Palestinians. Israel today is an amazing beehive of innovation — thanks, in part, to an influx of Russian brainpower, massive U.S. aid and smart policies. It’s something Jews should be proud of. But had Romney gone to Ramallah he would have seen a Palestinian beehive of entrepreneurship, too, albeit small, but not bad for a people living under occupation. Palestinian business talent also built the Persian Gulf states. In short, Romney didn’t know what he was talking about.

On peace, the Palestinians’ diplomacy has been a fractured mess, and I still don’t know if they can be a partner for a secure two-state deal with even the most liberal Israeli government. But I do know this: It is in Israel’s overwhelming interest to test, test and have the U.S. keep testing creative ideas for a two-state solution. That is what a real U.S. friend would promise to do. Otherwise, Israel could be doomed to become a kind of apartheid South Africa.

And here is what I also know: The three U.S. statesmen who have done the most to make Israel more secure and accepted in the region all told blunt truths to every Israeli or Arab leader: Jimmy Carter, who helped forge a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt; Henry Kissinger, who built the post-1973 war disengagement agreements with Syria, Israel and Egypt; and James Baker, who engineered the Madrid peace conference. All of them knew that to make progress in this region you have to get in the face of both sides. They both need the excuse at times that “the Americans made me do it,” because their own politics are too knotted to move on their own.

So how about all you U.S. politicians — Republicans and Democrats — stop feeding off this conflict for political gain. Stop using this conflict as a backdrop for campaign photo-ops and fund-raisers. Stop making things even worse by telling the most hard-line Israelis everything that they want to hear, just to grovel for Jewish votes and money, while blatantly ignoring the other side. There are real lives at stake out there. If you’re not going to do something constructive, stay away. They can make enough trouble for themselves on their own.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/op...egas.html?_r=1

I like Friedman....always says it like it is. Isn't afraid of pissing people off and has been scathing in his criticism of the PA in the past.

[Crisis]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
think that non-Zionist jews have as much right to a homeland in Palestine as Palestinians do.

But, the land doesn't belong to the Israelis. It belongs to the country of Palestine. The British and Americans occupied large part of Palestine and have gifted it to Israel

[Shubho]

Originally Posted by Crisis
But, the land doesn't belong to the Israelis. It belongs to the country of Palestine. The British and Americans occupied large part of Palestine and have gifted it to Israel

Erm.."country" of Palestine? Methinks, someone needs to re-read his history book.

[bujhee kom]

This is outright garbage! It is the the Franco-British plans of the 1920s and eventually British mandate of the late 40s that helped create Israel in the Palestinian area. NO "Americans occupied Palestine and gave it to Israel" ....yes the U.S. supports Israel and protects Israel today as much as BRITAIN, but blind, ignorant comments like these cause MORE HAMPER to the cause of a Palestinian Statehood today.

[bujhee kom]

CODEPINK protester victorious over AIPAC assailant

July 31st, 2012 · Posted by Occupy AIPAC!

Medea Benjamin | Mondoweiss

Rae Abileah at AIPAC's annual conference, 2011.

It is not every day that the voices for justice triumph over the actions of the rich and powerful, especially when it comes to the Israel-Palestine debate. That’s why it is so important to acknowledge and celebrate the settlement just negotiated by CODEPINK activist Rae Abileah and her lawyers after suing American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) volunteer lobbyist Stanley Shulster.

It all started on May 24, 2011, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, DC speaking before a joint session of Congress. Abileah, a 29-year-old Jewish woman who has traveled to the West Bank, Israel and Gaza, was in the audience. She became more and more appalled as she listened to Netanyahu’s speech and watched our congresspeople giving him a stream of standing ovations. “I couldn’t watch this hero’s welcome for a man who supports the continued building of illegal settlements, won’t lift the siege of Gaza, and refuses to negotiate with the Palestinian unity government,” said Abileah.

So Abileah did what most people would never have the courage to do. She got up and shouted: “No More Occupation! Stop Israeli War Crimes! Equal Rights for Palestinians!” And she unfurled a banner that read: “Occupying Land is Indefensible!”

She was immediately grabbed, violently pulled toward the floor, and gagged—not by the Capitol Police but by a member of the audience, Stanley Shulster, a retired attorney from Ashland, Oregon, who had traveled to Washington DC to attend the yearly conference of the Israel lobby group AIPAC. An online bio for Shulster revealed that he was an unpaid lobbyist, a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces, and a Navy veteran. In his bio Shulster bragged that he “grabbed the woman who heckled the Prime Minister while he was speaking.”

Abileah was rushed to the hospital, where she was treated for neck and shoulder injuries. She subsequently had to undergo months of physical therapy, chiropractic care and other treatments to heal from these injuries.

But Abileah was also determined to pursue her attacker. She pressed charges and got a warrant for his arrest, and she filed a civil suit for damages. Thanks to the tenacity and generosity of her attorneys, they just reached a settlement in which Shulster was forced to pay her medical fees and issue an apology. In the joint statement issued by Shulster and Abileah, Shulster acknowledges that he “respects the right of Ms. Abileah to hold a different view on the Israel-Palestine conflict and believes she holds this view in good faith,” and Abileah does the same. Both Abileah and Shulster recognize “the right, as Americans, to agree to disagree peacefully.” This might sound like a common sense statement but coming from a man who works with the IDF and AIPAC, which routinely categorizes any critique of Israel as anti-Semitic, this is extraordinary.

It is indeed a rare victory, as there is a history of attacks against US nonviolent activists defending Palestinians rights and most of the time, the attackers face no consequences. In 2007, a peaceful protester outside an AIPAC Conference in Washington DC was attacked and put in a chokehold. In this case, the police arrested the assailant, but they also arrested the woman who was attacked! In 2010, while standing on a public sidewalk, I was hit in the face by an AIPAC conference attendee, and the police refused to even take a police report. A few months later a protester and I were slugged with a book bag by an attendee at another pro-Israeli government conference, and the police once again refused to help. Students at the University of New Mexico were hit by audience members during a non-violent protest, and in November 2010, members of the pro-Occupation group Stand With Us (SWU) pepper-sprayed several members of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Video footage of the 2011 AIPAC Annual Gala shows the assault of a young woman who held a banner reading “Silencing Dissent Delegitimizes Israel.”

“This time, the justice system worked for me,” said a triumphant Abileah, “I hope it sends a message to aggressive Israeli Occupation supporters around the country that they don’t have the right to assault us; we have the right to express our views peacefully. Just as violence is not the answer to the Israel-Palestine conflict, it won’t work to silence critique and outcry in the US. This is a bittersweet victory—no one should suffer from a violent attack for just speaking up for equality and human rights.”

Of course, for the Palestinian people who live under Israel’s 45-year-old military occupation, violence dominates everyday life. The brutal 2008 invasion of Gaza left 1,400 people dead and crushed homes, schools, businesses—even hospitals. In the West Bank, peaceful protesters are regularly tear-gassed, shot, beaten, thrown into prison without trials.

“My neck pain was a small price to pay compared with the sacrifices made by Palestinian, Israeli, and international nonviolent protesters who’ve risked their bodies and lives to defend the basic human rights of the Palestinian people,” said Abileah. “But with this victory over an AIPAC volunteer lobbyist, perhaps more Americans will be encouraged to speak out and stand up for human rights and free speech.”

Ms. Abileah will donate a portion of the funds from Shulster to legal and medical aid for peaceful Palestinian protesters in the West Bank.

http://www.occupyaipac.org/2012/07/c...ant/#more-2947

[al Furqaan]

Wow just a civil suit and only had to pay for "damages". I gotta get in on this being Jewish thing!

[F6_Turbo]

This isn't from Israel...rather liberal, we all get along San Francisco



You know how they talk about dehumanizing your enemy...well there you are.

SAVAGES :thumbsup:

[NoName]

They're the Gauls?...Well even the Romans fell to them eventually.

[Zeeshan]

That just made my blood boil Turbo. Do you have the full link?

[mufi_02]

Haha Zee bhai. This ad is being sponsored by extreme Islamophobic group 'Atlas Shrugs'. I saw it before.

Link http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/a...rael-ads-.html

[NoName]

Seems like the itch is getting too much for Israel...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19274866

They seem to be confident that it would only take 30 days, it took them more than 30days to deal with Lebanon and they're far weaker than Iran.

[Zeeshan]

Originally Posted by mufi_02
Haha Zee bhai. This ad is being sponsored by extreme Islamophobic group 'Atlas Shrugs'. I saw it before.

Link http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/a...rael-ads-.html

Hehe Mufi bhai ei Pamela Geller ki Magician Uri Geller er bon naki? Naki Friends natok er Ross Geller er attiyo? Eto dekhi boddhyo pagol mohila.

[F6_Turbo]

Originally Posted by mufi_02
Haha Zee bhai. This ad is being sponsored by extreme Islamophobic group 'Atlas Shrugs'. I saw it before.

Link http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/a...rael-ads-.html

Started running them last week on local buses - rehash as you say from earlier efforts...being run by Pam Geller and the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/tran...ni-stir-debate

[PoorFan]

Sickening to see another mass killing of innocent people is looming. So much of humanity cry cant just do anything but watching people dying all over the world for nothing, even in this days.

[FaHiMa]

Why isn't there any threads on the current Gaza-Israel events?

Anywho

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopou...thing-like-war

Seriously???? This is how you glorify violence and war. BEAUT-ayyy.....NOT!