Thread: Ex-Israeli prime minister heckled on San Francisco visit

There may be hope yet from a not group that is not altogether unexpected--the Jewish community, secular and non secular alike.

A teaser from an article:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091102/horowitz_weiss

Sure sounds like a velvet revolution in the Jewish community, huh? Not so fast. The changes in attitudes are taking place at the grassroots; by and large, Jewish leaders are standing fast. And as for policymakers, the opening has been slight. There seems little likelihood the conference will bring us any closer to that holy grail of the reformers: the ability of a US president, not to mention Congress, to put real pressure on Israel.
First the good news. There's no question the Gaza conflict has helped break down the traditional Jewish resistance to criticizing Israel. Gaza was "the worst public relations disaster in Israel's history," says M.J. Rosenberg, a longtime Washington analyst who reports for Media Matters Action Network. For the first time in a generation, leading American Jews broke with the Jewish state over its conduct. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen said he was "shamed" by Israel's actions, while Michelle Goldberg wrote in the Guardian that Israel's killing of hundreds of civilians as reprisal for rocket attacks was "brutal" and probably "futile."

Originally Posted by woodenshoe

Gee, most of them live in urban area's now. I wonder why...

At least the above footage is from an Israeli channel, which is encouraging. There must be plenty of Israelis fuming over how the settlers are behaving, tarnishing the image of Israelis and fuelling the flames of hate in the region.

There must be plenty of Israelis fuming over how the settlers are behaving, tarnishing the image of Israelis and fuelling the flames of hate in the region

No doubt - however as is always the case with this sort of thing the voice of the moderates (from both sides) is either drowned out by the screaming of the extremists and/or ignored by the press (calling for peace and understanding doesn't make such great headlines)

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

There must be plenty of Israelis fuming over how the settlers are behaving, tarnishing the image of Israelis and fuelling the flames of hate in the region

No doubt - however as is always the case with this sort of thing the voice of the moderates (from both sides) is either drowned out by the screaming of the extremists and/or ignored by the press (calling for peace and understanding doesn't make such great headlines)

...a realistic point to be reckoned with, as the moderates might have a stronger position than we are lead to believe. A more fascinating model might be to wonder why Israel/Palestine issues are so anxiously debated and discussed by outsiders. Most, that take a particular stance either which way, don't find their vested political, spirtual, nor historical agendas satisfied by taking a 'middle path'. Regardless of one's social and political identities, such philosophical conduits have been socially engineered.

^
Not sure I understand what you mean by "...philosophical conduits have been socially engineered". I do think it's entirely possible to find my "...political, spirtual, nor historical agendas satisfied by taking a 'middle path'.

One problem is deciding what is moderate. Whatever moderate desires Israel may have started out with, it has turned itself into an extremist state using its legislature, judiciary, and military to calmly, methodically, put a reasonalble face on murder, robbery, theft, and very extreme, illegal acts against the indigenous population. Slow, deliberate, destruction. Not as dramatic as a car bomb, but just as extreme. The example below being a very moderate example.

Homes Demolished in Israel and Palestine
0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 18,147 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967.

“Any humanitarian looking at the sheer number of innocent civilians who have lost their homes can only condemn Israel’s house demolition policy as a hugely disproportionate military response by an occupation army... It is a policy that creates only hardship and bitterness, and in the end can only undermine hope for future reconciliation and peace.”

– Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of UNRWA

Source:Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions – This is the total number of homes demolished from 1967 through 2006.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/homes.html

you really ought to know better than use the appalling 'If Americans Knew' website. It's not much better than rense.com

many of those demolitions was specifically to deter suicide bombings, especially after their families were given cash rewards by Arab governments and private citizens for murdering Israeli civilians.

many of the others were only demolished after being fought in Israeli courts up to the highest levels, in the same way as anywhere else.

and of course, as a moments thought ought to tell anybody, even a small child, PLENTY of Israeli homes have been demolished since 1967, either to be replaced by other houses, or to allow the land to be redeveloped into other uses, i.e. shopping malls, parks, etc - often after their owners have taken similar legal action opposing the development that Palestinians have.

also Hizbullah and Hamas have managed to demolish plenty of Israeli houses. That website is one of the most twisted, dishonest sources you are likely to find anywhere on the web.

indigenous population

isn't it about time you cut that 'indigenous population' crap out?

the problem is these clowns repeat this nonsense among themselves so often, that they convince themselves that it has some validity. Well guess what. It doesn't.

1. Arabs were not present during Old Testament times, when Alexander marched through, during the time of the Gospels, etc.

2. Arabs first conquered the land in 638 CE.

3. Different Arab dynasties (empires), based in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, would occupy and rule Eretz Yisrael as a colony for just over 400 years, ending nearly 1000 years ago.

4. Indigenous populations of the "Holy Land" spoke Western Semitic languages - such as Hebrew and Aramaic.

5. Arabic is a Southern Semitic language - native to Arabia.

6. Those familiar with history know that there was large Arab immigration in the 16th century. This is when Ramallah[www.ramallah-city.org/history.htm] was founded.

7. Veteran Arab families in Jerusalem, such as the Husseinis, date their origins to this period, too.
(Ashraf Husseini, an Orkut member, has said so himself.)

8. This makes them less "native/indigenous" than Europeans ("White man") in the Americas.

9. Does anyone claim that the British are native to the USA? That the Spanish are indigenous in Mexico?


Without realizing it, Tamara provides proof of large Arab immigration in the 20th century:

T> 1922) Arabs – 670,000
T> 1945) Arabs – 1,210,000

10. The 1922 population predates the separation of Trans-Jordan, inflating the Arab population.

11. Even ignoring 10, we see that in 23 years the Arab populace nearly doubled. That is about 4x the growth rate of surrounding Arab states.

12. Closer examination of Arab population statistics reveals that the population grew primarily in areas of Jewish and British development. In Haifa (where a modern port was built), the Arab population increased 290%. In Nablus, it only rose 42%.

Where is that cut 'n pasted from?

See my Post #45 above calippo- Palestinians are defined as Arab, which is a cultural and linguistic identity, but they are not Arabian- which is an ethnicity. Many Arab peoples are not ethnically Arabian. Incidentally, the Jews migrated to Palestine/ Israel from what is now northern Iraq, and are closely related to the Kurds- or at least that minority, such as the Palestinian Jews, that maintained their pure Semitic bloodlines. Like, so what?

The Palestinians stand as one of the longest continous human habitations in history. In short, they ain't going anywhere. If you are trying to foist that monstrous fraud attempted by Joan Peters in her 'book' From Time Immemorial on us, be aware that we are wise to it and know that is has long since been utterly discredited- to the point where even intelligent Zionists are embarassed to mention it these days.

Why is it that every time the subject of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict comes up the Zionist supporters try to turn it into an ancient history lesson about what happened in biblical times and before?

I suppose its because such ancient history is the very foundation of their justification for human rights abuses and war crimes in these modern times. Omitting to mention or discuss the fact that the Palestinian people, which included Muslims and Jews, have lived in relative harmony for centuries prior to this western colonialist establishment of a Jewish homeland based on ancient claims to the land.

Its about time we stopped talking about the Zionist right to Palestinian land based on ancient historical claims and started considering the Palestinians rights to live on their land which they have occupied for centuries.

With that big wall there it look like an internment camp.

Omitting to mention or discuss the fact that the Palestinian people, which included Muslims and Jews, have lived in relative harmony for centuries

you've spectacularly failed to take on board that there were no 'Palestinian people' until 1918. Until then there was no entity called Palestine, except as a foreign, Latin/European word.

Jews, Arabs, and others living in the region NEVER called it that.

also, you're floating another common misconception the anti-Israel brigade would dearly love the world to believe - namely, that Jews and Arabs lived in some sort of peace and tranquil state prior to the advent of modern Zionism.

this is simply not true.

Historic Arab/Muslim oppression of Jewish Dhimmis

Jews and Christians were dhimmis, a “protected” people (protected from who and what?). As such, they weren’t allowed to pray in public, testify in court (not even in self defense), often had to wear distinctive clothing (heaven forbid someone might not know that this was a “protected person” and thus might treat them respectfully rather than diminutively). Muslims forced Jews to live in ghettos (millah) before Europeans copied this innovation. Up until the holocaust, the claim that Muslims treated Jews better than Christians is debatable – and a bizarre defense.

The above was true almost for the entire 1300 years that Jews lived under Arab/Muslim rule. To quote the Tunisian Jewish scholar Albert Memmi (Jews and Arabs, trans. Eleanor Levieux, J. Philip O'Hara Inc., Chicago, 1975, pgs. 20-27):

|| if we leave out the crematoria and the murders committed in Russia, from Kichinev to Stalin, the sum total of the Jewish victims of the Christian world is probably no greater than the total number of victims of the successive pogroms, both big and small, perpetrated in the Moslem countries.

|| the supposed "idyllic life" led by Jews in the Arab countries is all a myth! The truth... is that we were, first of all, a minority in hostile surroundings and, as such, we had all the fears of the overly weak, their constant feeling of precariousness... Never, except for two or three eras with very clear boundaries in time, such as the Andalusian period… have the Jews lived in the Arab countries otherwise than as diminished people in an exposed position, periodically overcome and massacred so that they would be acutely conscious of their position.

Ironically, those exceptional eras ended up disastrously, such as the massacre of 5,000 Jews in Grenada in 1066.

Even in “Palestine” this was the case: The Jerusalem Jews were bitterly and mercilessly persecuted during the 17th century reign of an Arab ruler Ibn Barouk who bought the rule from Murad IV. In 1660 the entire Jewish community was massacred by Arabs with only one survivor.

Johann van Egmont and John Hayman wrote that oppression was so great that Jews "pay for the very air they breathe."

In 1674, the Jesuit Father Michael Naud wrote that Jews were "paying heavily to the Turk for their right to stay here.... They prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere... The love of the Jews for the Holy Land... is unbelievable."

In 1834 the inhabitants of Eastern Palestine crossed the Jordan River to join natives of Nablus, Hebron, and Bethlehem, 40,000 of them rushed on Jerusalem and looted the city for 5 days where the Jews had their homes sacked and their women raped. (DeHass, History, vol V, p.393).

Between 1848 - 1878, before the advent of modern Zionism, scores of incidents involving anti-Jewish violence, persecution, and extortions filled page after page of documented reports from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Due to the harsh conditions, toward the end of the century 1/3rd of the Jewish population emigrated elsewhere.

The Hamas Covenant quotes the teaching of Muhammad as related by al-Bukhari and Moslem:

The Avalon Project : Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy

|| Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.

|| "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

notice that it's kill Jews, not kill Zionists.

I often wonder WHY this hatred toward the Jews over millenia.
as a general rule where there's smoke there's fire. By which I mean there must be a reason the Jews are disliked so much.

"The above was true almost for the entire 1300 years that Jews lived under Arab/Muslim rule. "

"Ironically, those exceptional eras ended up disastrously, such as the massacre of 5,000 Jews in Grenada in 1066."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Get over it Callippo, Israel didn't exist for thousands of years before the western colonialists created the place in 1948. No amount of quoting ancient history will make it right for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in these modern times.

Originally Posted by callippo

Omitting to mention or discuss the fact that the Palestinian people, which included Muslims and Jews, have lived in relative harmony for centuries

you've spectacularly failed to take on board that there were no 'Palestinian people' until 1918. Until then there was no entity called Palestine, except as a foreign, Latin/European word.

Jews, Arabs, and others living in the region NEVER called it that.

also, you're floating another common misconception the anti-Israel brigade would dearly love the world to believe - namely, that Jews and Arabs lived in some sort of peace and tranquil state prior to the advent of modern Zionism.

this is simply not true.

Historic Arab/Muslim oppression of Jewish Dhimmis

Jews and Christians were dhimmis, a “protected” people (protected from who and what?). As such, they weren’t allowed to pray in public, testify in court (not even in self defense), often had to wear distinctive clothing (heaven forbid someone might not know that this was a “protected person” and thus might treat them respectfully rather than diminutively). Muslims forced Jews to live in ghettos (millah) before Europeans copied this innovation. Up until the holocaust, the claim that Muslims treated Jews better than Christians is debatable – and a bizarre defense.

The above was true almost for the entire 1300 years that Jews lived under Arab/Muslim rule. To quote the Tunisian Jewish scholar Albert Memmi (Jews and Arabs, trans. Eleanor Levieux, J. Philip O'Hara Inc., Chicago, 1975, pgs. 20-27):

|| if we leave out the crematoria and the murders committed in Russia, from Kichinev to Stalin, the sum total of the Jewish victims of the Christian world is probably no greater than the total number of victims of the successive pogroms, both big and small, perpetrated in the Moslem countries.

|| the supposed "idyllic life" led by Jews in the Arab countries is all a myth! The truth... is that we were, first of all, a minority in hostile surroundings and, as such, we had all the fears of the overly weak, their constant feeling of precariousness... Never, except for two or three eras with very clear boundaries in time, such as the Andalusian period… have the Jews lived in the Arab countries otherwise than as diminished people in an exposed position, periodically overcome and massacred so that they would be acutely conscious of their position.

Ironically, those exceptional eras ended up disastrously, such as the massacre of 5,000 Jews in Grenada in 1066.

Brilliant posts, nice to see somebody who really knows what they are talking about put it over so well. Baffling to me how so many fall for the 'Palestinian'=victims Israel= brutal occupier Arab propaganda, and who believe the conflict is actually about land.

As I suspected. calippo is a malevolent wanker, crazy dog a victim.

Your neo-Nazi fantasies were exploded, long ago. And yes, I compare you to them.


https://teakdoor.com/us-domestic-issu...ht=finkelstein

callippo,
these are the only two lines in your many posts i could find that had any relevance to the subject:

Originally Posted by callippo
1. Jews immigrated to Palestine on their own initiative, using their own resources, and had been doing so for half a century before the start of mandate Palestine in 1918.
2. By the 1880s, Jews were already the majority in Jerusalem.

logically line 2 says they were NOT the majority before 1880.

logically line 2 also says they were NOT the majority in other places.

so OTHER ppl already lived there.

line 1 says Jews came from OUTSIDE the area to move there.

and that is really all i need to know.

Originally Posted by crazy dog
Brilliant posts, nice to see somebody who really knows what they are talking about put it over so well. Baffling to me how so many fall for the 'Palestinian'=victims Israel= brutal occupier Arab propaganda, and who believe the conflict is actually about land.

He could be a member of JIDF and pasting from their database.

Jewish Internet Defense Force

brilliant my (insert bodypart here)....

Unfortunately (for some), research has shown that Palestine was one of the most affluent places in the 'Arab' world, due to it's trade. A rather unexpected consequence of Joan Peters attempted fraud- which incidentally was an attempt to deny an indigenous people their identity- was a bit of research. Olives and Jaffa oranges were exported to Europe and Nth Africa, probably the biggest exports.

Some say it was the trading prowess of the Phoenicians/ Hebrews/ Philistines- but I say look at the map and the confluence of geography and climate. Constantinople was even more affluent.

Unfortunately (for some), research has shown that Palestine was one of the most affluent places in the 'Arab' world, due to it's trade.

excuse me, but what time period are you talking about?

Time and again we see the false claim, regurgitated yet again here, that "Palestine" (a Latin/European word which was defined by Europeans in the 19th century on the basis of the Jewish homeland) was an existing Arab country, that it was an "Arab land". As if Jews weren't still present, and remained present throughout the time Arabs began colonizing it. As if the land was full of Arabs and with no Jews.

Here follows accounts by travelers who visited, in the 18th and 19th centuries :

In 1738 Thomas Shaw ["Travels and Observations"] described a land of

|| barrenness.... from want of inhabitants.

In 1785 Constantine Francois de Volney ["Travels Through Syria and Egypt"] recorded the population of the three main cities.

Jerusalem had a population of 12,000 to 14,000. Bethlehem had about 600 able-bodied men. Hebron had 800 to 900 men.

In 1835 Alphonse de Lamartine wrote ["Recollections of the East", published 1838]:

|| Outside the city of Jerusalem, we saw no living object, heard no living sound... a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in the country... The tomb of a whole people.

Recall that by this time Jews (despite being expelled in 1660 and the subject of several massacres) formed a plurality in Jerusalem.

Echoing these sentiments, in 1857 the British consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, wrote [British Foreign Office Documents 78/1294, Pol. No. 36] :

|| The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population.


Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) needs no introduction to North American audiences, but for those not familiar with him Twain is one of America's most prolific writers. Perhaps you've even heard of such classics as "Huckleberry Fin" and "Tom Sawyer". Twain's works are known for his accurate description of the setting (a literary genre known as realism).

In 1869 he wrote The Innocents Abroad. It was a compilation of his recent journey aboard a steam ship that was the world's first cruise ship. In the preface, Twain writes that:

|| This book is a record of a pleasure trip. ...it has a purpose, which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him.... I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly

The book is broken down into 62 chapters. Here are some excerpts:

|| There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [Gilboa] -- not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings. ...No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah....

|| [a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds -- a silent mournful expanse.


Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) needs no introduction to (most) North Americans, but for those not familiar with him Twain is one of America's most prolific writers. Perhaps you've even heard of such classics as "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer". Twain's works are known for his accurate description of the setting (a literary genre known as realism).

In 1869 he wrote The Innocents Abroad. It was a compilation of his recent journey aboard a steam ship that was the world's first cruise ship. In the preface, Twain writes that:

|| This book is a record of a pleasure trip. ...it has a purpose, which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him.... I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly

The book is broken down into 62 chapters. Here are some excerpts:

|| There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [Gilboa] -- not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings. ...No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah....

by the way, this village, mentioned by Twain, is one that Arab propagandists list it as been “ethnically cleansed” in 1948. Other historical accounts speak of 100 villages which had already been abandoned, due to natural causes such as malaria, by around 1900.

|| [a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds -- a silent mournful expanse.


Some estimates put the population as low as 100,000 in the mid 19th century, just 150 years ago, and in decline. This in a land that 2000 years ago, in "primitive" times, supported as many as 7 million people and in which, today, 10 million people reside.

this what the Zionists argued with the Mandate authorties back in the 1920s. They claimed, that with proper stewardship, the land, i.e. today's Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, could support 10 million people in the future, in other words even more than the millions it supported in biblical times. The British, who saw only an inhospitable, barren landscape, refused to believe it possible. But ninety years later the Zionists have been proved right. The land DOES support 10 million people, for sure, some more comfortably than others - but just imagine how much comfortably some of those inhabitants (i.e. mainly the Arab ones) might be living today had they not rejected co-existence at every turn and every attempt at peaceful co-existence under a two-state solution from partition to the collapse of Camp David in 2000?

Sabang, presumably taking his cue from that fraud Norman Finkelstein, seems to have a bee in his bonnet about Peters' book. While it is not a book I would recommend without considerable reservations, (some of the scholarship is very sloppy, and she doesn't reference any Arab sources), one of its main claims - that many Arabs from all over the region were newcomers attracted to the areas of Jewish and British development, has not been refuted by scholars.

then of course, by the 1930s and 1940s, many Arabs, seeing that Palestine wasn't the total backwater that it had become by the mid-19th century, but had instead become, suddenly, a fast growing economic area, turned round and wanted all the cake for themselves, rejecting partition and instead choosing to violently attempt to 'throw the Jews into the sea'.

Originally Posted by callippo

seems to have a bee in his bonnet about Peters' book

That I do- the whole finkelstein story as well.

Incidentally, what would you think about a 'one state' solution- y'know Israel/ Palestine with jewish & palestinian citizens. I've never seen the big problem with it, but it seems most Israeli's want a 'Jewish' state, even if smaller.

Originally Posted by Panda

Its about time we stopped talking about the Zionist right to Palestinian land based on ancient historical claims and started considering the Palestinians rights to live on their land which they have occupied for centuries.

Agreed. No matter what bit of minutia is finally true, it's still ancient history. Present day reality is more compelling.

by Professor Francis Boyle
Professor of International Law, University of Illinois

Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation. Security Council Resolution 1322 (2000), paragraph 3 continued: “Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War of 12 August 1949;...” Again, the Security Council vote was 14 to 0, becoming obligatory international law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, to the Gaza Strip, and to the entire City of Jerusalem, in order to protect the Palestinians living there. The Palestinian People living in this Palestinian Land are “protected persons” within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under international law.
There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli Government is currently violating, and has since 1967 been violating, almost each and every one of these sacred rights of the Palestinian People recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes.
So this is not a symmetrical situation. As matters of fact and of law, the gross and repeated violations of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers living illegally in occupied Palestine constitute war crimes. Conversely, the Palestinian People are defending themselves and their Land and their Homes against Israeli war crimes and Israeli war criminals, both military and civilian.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/boyle.html

Originally Posted by MrG

Originally Posted by Panda

Its about time we stopped talking about the Zionist right to Palestinian land based on ancient historical claims and started considering the Palestinians rights to live on their land which they have occupied for centuries.

Agreed. No matter what bit of minutia is finally true, it's still ancient history. Present day reality is more compelling.

by Professor Francis Boyle
Professor of International Law, University of Illinois

Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation. Security Council Resolution 1322 (2000), paragraph 3 continued: “Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War of 12 August 1949;...” Again, the Security Council vote was 14 to 0, becoming obligatory international law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, to the Gaza Strip, and to the entire City of Jerusalem, in order to protect the Palestinians living there. The Palestinian People living in this Palestinian Land are “protected persons” within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under international law.
There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli Government is currently violating, and has since 1967 been violating, almost each and every one of these sacred rights of the Palestinian People recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes.
So this is not a symmetrical situation. As matters of fact and of law, the gross and repeated violations of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers living illegally in occupied Palestine constitute war crimes. Conversely, the Palestinian People are defending themselves and their Land and their Homes against Israeli war crimes and Israeli war criminals, both military and civilian.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/boyle.html

The thing is that as long as the USA funds, arms and protects Israels aggression against the Palestinian people, Israel will continue to expand their illegal occupation of Palestinian land undeterred by international law or international opinion.

The USA purports to act as peacemaker in this conflict, yet in reality they are nothing more than a covert arm of the Zionist war machine.

The US government could pull the reins in on the Israeli illegal criminal activities tomorrow if they choose to by simply pulling funding for the Israeli war machine.
Israel is the worlds largest recipient of US foreign aid. Virtually all of it now going to the Israeli military. Why does a wealthy country like Israel need such a large chunk of US foreign aid to fund their military? And further, why is USA continuing to fund Israels expanding occupation of Palestine?

Even today as Hillary Clinton goes to the ME for mock peace talks, the Israelis refuse to halt their illegal expansion of Zionist settlements on Palestinian land.
The Palestinians have said that halting the expansion of Israeli settlement on Palestinian land is the fundamental issue and peace talks can not proceed until it stops. So what does Hillary say to that? Well, she reckons the Palestinians are just being hard to get on with and talks should proceed.

Basically, the US led (so called) ME peace talks are a complete farce. How can USA as Israels primary military and financial backer claim to be an independent peacebroker? These so called peace talks are nothing more than stalling tactics designed to allow the US funded Israelis to tighten their grip on Palestinian territory.