Thread: US-Israeli-Palestinian Policies

I'm just thinking....When will Kristof be fired for this?

a) Tomorrow
b) 2 days
c) He's already been fired

Kristof: US should stop biting tongue on Israel RAW STORY
Published: Saturday March 17, 2007
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Whether they have "learned to muzzle themselves" or they "just don't get it," US politicians should stop biting their tongues when it comes to Israel, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof argues in Sunday's paper.
"Democrats are railing at just about everything President Bush does, with one prominent exception: Bush's crushing embrace of Israel," Kristof writes.

And since "[t]here is no serious political debate among either Democrats or Republicans about our policy toward Israelis and Palestinians," Kristof believes, the "silence harms America, Middle East peace prospects and Israel itself."
"Within Israel, you hear vitriolic debates in politics and the news media about the use of force and the occupation of Palestinian territories," Kristof notes. "Yet no major American candidate is willing today to be half as critical of hard-line Israeli government policies as, say, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper."

According to Kristof, "Hard-line Israeli policies have profoundly harmed that country's long-term security by adding vulnerable settlements, radicalizing young Palestinians, empowering Hamas and Hezbollah, isolating Israel in the world and nurturing another generation of terrorists in Lebanon. The Israeli right's aggressive approach has only hurt Israeli security, just as in much the same way that Bush's invasion of Iraq ended up harming U.S. interests."

Discussing what happened after Hezbollah kidnapped and killed Israeli troops last summer, Kristof believes that "Bush would have been a much better friend to Israel if he had tried to rein in Olmert," after the prime minister "invaded Lebanon and thus transformed Hezbollah into a heroic force in much of the Arab world."
"So let's be better friends -- and stop biting our tongues," Kristof argues.
Excerpts from op-ed:
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One reason for the void is that American politicians have learned to muzzle themselves. In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic primaries, Howard Dean said he favored an "even-handed role" for the United States -- and was blasted for being hostile to Israel. Likewise, Barack Obama has been scolded for daring to say: "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has safely refused to show an inch of daylight between herself and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
A second reason may be that American politicians just don't get it. King Abdullah of Jordan spoke to Congress this month and observed: "The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine." Though widely criticized, King Abdullah was exactly right: from Morocco to Yemen to Sudan, the Palestinian cause arouses ordinary people in coffee shops more than almost anything else.
You can argue that Arabs pursue a double standard, focusing on repression by Israelis while ignoring greater human rights violations by fellow Arabs. But the suffering in Palestinian territories, while not remotely at the scale of brutality in Sudan or Iraq, is still tragically real.
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Link: The Raw Story | Kristof: US should stop biting tongue on Israel

good topic.

here's the complete column.

Talking About Israel


Published: March 18, 2007


Democrats are railing at just about everything President Bush does, with one prominent exception: Mr. Bush’s crushing embrace of Israel.

There is no serious political debate among either Democrats or Republicans about our policy toward Israelis and Palestinians. And that silence harms America, Middle East peace prospects and Israel itself.
Within Israel, you hear vitriolic debates in politics and the news media about the use of force and the occupation of Palestinian territories. Yet no major American candidate is willing today to be half as critical of hard-line Israeli government policies as, say, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper.
Three years ago, Israel’s minister of justice spoke publicly of photos of an elderly Palestinian woman beside the ruins of her home, after it had been destroyed by the Israeli army. He said that they reminded him of his own grandmother, who had been dispossessed by the Nazis. Can you imagine an American cabinet secretary ever saying such a thing?
One reason for the void is that American politicians have learned to muzzle themselves. In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic primaries, Howard Dean said he favored an “even-handed role” for the U.S. — and was blasted for being hostile to Israel. Likewise, Barack Obama has been scolded for daring to say: “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has safely refused to show an inch of daylight between herself and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
A second reason may be that American politicians just don’t get it. King Abdullah of Jordan spoke to Congress this month and observed: “The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine.” Though widely criticized, King Abdullah was exactly right: from Morocco to Yemen to Sudan, the Palestinian cause arouses ordinary people in coffee shops more than almost anything else.
You can argue that Arabs pursue a double standard, focusing on repression by Israelis while ignoring greater human rights violations by fellow Arabs. But the suffering in Palestinian territories, while not remotely at the scale of brutality in Sudan or Iraq, is still tragically real.
B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights organization, reports that last year Palestinians killed 17 Israeli civilians (including one minor) and six Israeli soldiers. In the same period, B’Tselem said, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians, triple the number killed in 2005. Of the Palestinians killed in 2006, half were not taking part in hostilities at the time they were killed, and 141 were minors.
For more than half a century, the U.S. was an honest broker in the Middle East. Presidents Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan were warmer to Israel and Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush a bit cooler, but all sought a balance. George W. Bush has abandoned that tradition of balance.
Hard-line Israeli policies have profoundly harmed that country’s long-term security by adding vulnerable settlements, radicalizing young Palestinians, empowering Hamas and Hezbollah, isolating Israel in the world and nurturing another generation of terrorists in Lebanon. The Israeli right’s aggressive approach has only hurt Israeli security, just as President Bush’s invasion of Iraq ended up harming U.S. interests.
The best hope for Israel in the long run isn’t a better fence or more weaponry; they can provide a measure of security in the short run but will be of little help if terrorists turn, as they eventually will if the present trajectory continues, to chemical, biological or radiological weapons. Ultimately, security for Israel will emerge only from a peace agreement with Palestinians. We even know what that peace deal will look like: the Geneva accord, reached in 2003 by private Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
M. J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum headlined a recent column, “Pandering Not Required.” He wisely called on American presidential candidates instead to prove their support for Israel by pledging: “If I am elected president, I will do everything in my power to bring about negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians with the goal of achieving peace and security for Israel and a secure state for the Palestinians.”
Last summer, after Hezbollah killed three Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others, Prime Minister Olmert invaded Lebanon and thus transformed Hezbollah into a heroic force in much of the Arab world. President Bush would have been a much better friend to Israel if he had tried to rein in Mr. Olmert. So let’s be better friends — and stop biting our tongues.

I totally agree with Kristoff.

Here's an article by George Soros:
Written on —March 15, 2007

For the printing on April 12, 2007


On Israel, America and AIPAC

By George Soros

The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the US State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.
The United States and Israel seek to deal only with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in the hope that new elections would deny Hamas the majority it now has in the Palestinian Legislative Council. This is a hopeless strategy because Hamas has said it would boycott early elections, and even if their outcome would result in Hamas's exclusion from the government, no peace agreement would hold without Hamas's support.

In the meantime Saudi Arabia is pursuing a different path. In a February summit in Mecca between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, the Saudi government worked out an agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which have been clashing violently, to form a national unity government. According to the Mecca accord, Hamas has agreed "to respect international resolutions and the agreements [with Israel] signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization," including the Oslo Accords. According to press reports on March 15, the new government, like the present one, will be headed by Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, but Hamas will get nine of the government's twenty-four ministries, as well as an additional minister without portfolio; President Abbas and his Fatah party will control six ministries, and independent representatives—some said to be under the control of Hamas or Fatah—and other political factions will fill the nine remaining ministries.


The Saudi government views this accord as the prelude to the offer of a peace settlement with Israel, along the lines of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, a settlement to be guaranteed by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, based on the 1967 borders and full recognition of Israel. The offer was meant to be elaborated by Saudi King Abdullah at the Arab League meeting to be hosted by Saudi Arabia at the end of March. But no progress is possible as long as the Bush administration and the Ehud Olmert government persist in their current position of refusing to recognize a unity government that includes Hamas. The recent meeting between Condoleezza Rice, Abbas, and Olmert turned into an empty formality.

Many of the causes of the current impasse go back to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip unilaterally, without negotiating with the then-Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority. This strengthened the position of Hamas. In the run-up to the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Sharon refused to lift a finger to help Fatah's prospects. At the behest of the Quartet—the European Union, the United States, Russia, and the United Nations—James Wolfensohn worked out a six-point plan to assist the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip; among other things, it called for facilitating traffic between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and opening a port and an airport in the Gaza Strip. But not one of the six points was implemented. The Bush administration's official in charge, Elliot Abrams, sabotaged the six-point plan from its inception. Partly as a consequence, Hamas won the elections in an upset victory.

Then came the blunder I am talking about. Israel, with the strong backing of the United States, refused to recognize the democratically elected Hamas government and withheld payment of the millions in taxes collected by the Israelis on its behalf.....

Entire & Link: On Israel, America and AIPAC - The New York Review of Books


Whole article can be read quickly and is worth the read.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The US will always support Israel and that fact pisses the Jew-haters off to no end...

George Soros is of jewish roots..

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

George Soros is a complete idiot who'd throw his own mother out of her house if he could get a higher rent for the place. A bleedinig-heart hypocrite of the worst kind and responsible for the Asian currency meltdown in '98 and the run on the pound sterling.

Soros is Jewish.

Please provide sources for your above statements.

The US will always support Israel and that fact pisses the Jew-haters off to no end...

Please provide sources.


Thanks.

Booners, you could have guessed it without knowing it.

Good at economics, extremely greedy..

I don't see anything inconsistent with always supporting Israel, or being a proud friend of Israel, and telling them to get the fuck out of the occupied territories.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The US will always support Israel and that fact pisses the Jew-haters off to no end...

Yeah, of course everyone remotely critical of Israeli politics is a "Jew-hater".
Thanks for demonstrating the very point made in the article.

"Self-hating Jews" is the label for those.
The world seems to be full of Jew-haters and self-hating Jews. I wonder if they are related to America-haters, who seem to be an equally prominent threat to civilisation.

A new book is set for release. At first an article written by these two authors was censored - pulled off of the racks of the Atlantic Monthly. Now, they're releasing a book. Get ready for the sparks to fly: charges of anti-semitism, etc., etc., etc., ADL, and AIPAC, are greasing their gun barrels.

Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel

Greg Martin
Authors of a new book: Stephen Walt, left, of Harvard University, and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago.


Published: August 16, 2007


“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.
Skip to next paragraph


John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.


“Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States,” they write. “Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility” because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.

Entire: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/bo...hp&oref=slogin

Originally Posted by lom

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The US will always support Israel and that fact pisses the Jew-haters off to no end...

George Soros is of jewish roots..

Some say so was Hitler, and it could also be argued that mooslims have the odd rush of djooish DNA bouncing around inside them. Dunno, could it be deep seated envy that makes partial djoos so despise the real ones?

Originally Posted by keda

Originally Posted by lom

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The US will always support Israel and that fact pisses the Jew-haters off to no end...

George Soros is of jewish roots..

Some say so was Hitler, and it could also be argued that mooslims have the odd rush of djooish DNA bouncing around inside them. Dunno, could it be deep seated envy that makes partial djoos so despise the real ones?

Will I ever hear the end of this endlessly repeated twaddle that being opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and US support of it, means you are anti-semitic?

arabs are also semite but i get your point...still, twist my arm hard enough and i may agree there's nothing anti-djooish about followers of the most merciful and compassionate wishing to do away with djoos...

Originally Posted by keda

arabs are also semite but i get your point...still, twist my arm hard enough and i may agree there's nothing anti-djooish about followers of the most merciful and compassionate wishing to do away with djoos...

I realise all you guys are firmly entrenched in your individual bunkers and any hint of a less than totally doctrinaire viewpoint would be taken as warmongering or appeasement (depending on your sexual persuasion) but it might do you all some good to relieve your blind ignorance a little bit (you CAN do this at home , preferably behind a locked door so nobody knows.) I don't particularly mean to pick on you Keda , but you might find it interesting to read about the Jewish community in Iran. Persian Jews - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jews of Iran IRAN: Life of Jews Living in Iran BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran's proud but discreet Jews For the other side I am sure I could come with numerous examples of humanitarian work by the US in muslim countries (which only seems to receive attention when a cultural gaffe is involved). If , like me , you remember the aftermath of the Tsunami you may have seen reports of the efforts of the US Navy (the goddam military FFS) in Aceh. I'm sure a little research could even throw up some helpful things Israel has done for its Arab neighbours.

Originally Posted by NathairCeann

I'm sure a little research could even throw up some helpful things Israel has done for its Arab neighbours.

Dare you!

^^ I followed your link, interesting, then slipped up and ended up here...Jewish exodus from Arab lands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

George Soros is a complete idiot who'd throw his own mother out of her house if he could get a higher rent for the place. A bleedinig-heart hypocrite of the worst kind and responsible for the Asian currency meltdown in '98 and the run on the pound sterling.

The US will always support Israel and that fact pisses the Jew-haters off to no end...

Now this statement symbolises how brilliant you are.

George Soros manages hedge funds. If you had invested $1000 back in late 60s in his hedge funds, you would be a millionaire by now.

Now who's idioit, again?

*Although he's a Jew, I still respect him for having brains*

^^ Yes. Interesting how that page starts "This emigration began in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War" or, in other words, after the Israeli state was carved out of Palestinian land and the Palestinian residents killed or expelled.

poosies...!

Originally Posted by keda

^^ I followed your link, interesting, then slipped up and ended up here...Jewish exodus from Arab lands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I looked again at the Wiki link I posted and the one you posted and tried to imagine how you could have got from A to B as there is no clickable link between the two. Without wishing to shatter your illusions I was prompted to do this because Iranians are not Arabs. You were probably searching for something which reassured your convictions and this is perfectly understandable. I sincerely hope I did not cause you emotional trauma by exposing you to the concept of Muslims who were not slaughtering Jews. I think if you re-insert your head in the orifice it normally occupies calm will return in short order. All the best.