Did Pres. Obama throw Israel under the bus?

Discussion in 'World Events' started by quantum_wave, May 20, 2011.

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Did he or didn't he?

  1. No

    75.0%
  2. Yes

    25.0%
  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Liberation doesn't have to mean destroying Israel. You sound like you live in a cloistered world of activist propaganda.
     
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  3. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Bingo!

    Still waiting SAM for that reply.
     
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  5. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    There is no bingo about it. Both Germany and South Africa are still present. They've just off loaded the racism and apartheid that was unsupportable.
     
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  7. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    And so we should end apartheid throughout the middle east. Palestinians born in Arab lands should be granted the right to citizenship in those lands, Palestinians born in the West Bank and Gaza should have the right to their own state, and Palestinians born in Israel should have the right to retain full equality as Israeli citizens. That would solve the apartheid issue quite nicely, wouldn't it?
     
  8. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Sure. But who is "we"?

    Get real. Israel has little appetite for the end of their apartheid exclusive "nation". There is a small percentage of activists, but most Israelis are indifferent, and elect governments who actively oppose any movement away from the protections of Jewish rights (i.e. exclusive access to land and resources, social services, education, citizenship, etc).
     
  9. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    "We" are the people whose governments provide nations in the region with financial and diplomatic support and open our doors to their markets. We should use our power and influence to pressure all countries in the region to end all forms of racial and religious discrimination, especially in places like Mecca where it's completely illegal for non-Muslims to even enter the city, and the prevalence of religious-based law and clerical rule in general. As another example, Jews, Christians, atheists, Hindus and Buddhists should be able to run for the position of Grand Ayatollah in Iran.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2011
  10. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Right. But "we" don't do this.
    Why aren't "we" pressuring all those countries where discrimination on religious or ethnic grounds is practised, even instituted by governments?

    Indifference? Economic reality? Wanting to be elected, so also wanting to not be seen as a political activist, or an antisemite?
     
  11. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, all those things. Many 1st world countries would practically shut down if the oil flow from the middle east were halted (to be fair, the countries selling the oil would have it even worse), so from an economic standpoint there's no appetite to challenge them. Israel has nukes, so from a "realism" standpoint it's just plain retarded to call for a military solution which renders them a minority in someone else's land, because that certainly won't improve anyone's lives on either side of the conflict.

    So what I think we need to do is begin an economic and military disengagement from the region, providing aid, trade and support to nations that make positive changes in their human rights policy while withdrawing aid, trade and support from nations which do not. I'd like to see similar policies applied to the trade relationship with China as well, even if it costs America a great deal in the short term, because it's not in America's interests to help create an authoritarian superpower with clear ambitions to challenge the western democratic model in favour of the fascist economics the west practiced two centuries ago.
     
  12. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    @Sam

    Darling even Finkelstein, Chomsky, Hedges and Pilger and others we both respect in terms of their analysis of human rights abuses call it ethnic cleansing. The difference is about intent. So for example Rwanda was a genocide because for months and months the ruling Hutu's had a plan to exterminate all of the Tutusi, they wouldn't let them cross into the Congo, they wanted every man woman and child dead. In Sudan even refugees who crossed the border into neighboring countries were not safe from harm as the janjaweed would go out of their way to cross over just so they could kill them. Ethnic cleansing is when you use any means to remove a group from the land thorough dispossession. So you have the settlements and the check-points or the harassment so the group will leave.

    Ethnic cleansing is the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.

    The fact that there Palestinians die during Israeli bombing or what have you does not amount to genocide. We can say for instance that the US are killing innocent Afghans but we don't say they are committing a genocide.

    Miquel d'Escoto Brockmann does not set UN standards nor is he speaking on behalf of the UN but is speaking his own mind, his own opinion but that doesn't mean its fact as these are legal definitions which are very specific. Which is why this is what the UN officially says:

    U.N. Investigator Accuses Israel of “Ethnic Cleansing”

    "A top United Nations investigator has called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate Israel’s continued expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, described Israel’s actions as a form of ethnic cleansing."

    Richard Falk: “As the report illustrates, the continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem, combined with forceful eviction of long-residing Palestinians, are creating an intolerable situation that can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing.”

    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/22/headlines/un_investigator_accuses_israel_of_ethnic_cleansing

    Fact is that Israel are not interested in exterminating Palestinians, if that's what they wanted to do Sam they have the means to do it with such expediency you wouldn't know what happened. Instead they are pushing them out, they want their land. If every Palestinian left to live in Jordan or elsewhere I'm sure the Israeli state would offer them an olive branch on their way out.

    So no I am not 'out of touch with reality' I know the facts very well and make sure that the facts come from reliable sources and its the actual legal description for what is going on:

    Chomsky: The plans, which have roots in traditional goals of the Zionist movement from its origins (across the ideological spectrum), were articulated in internal discussion by Israeli government Arabists in 1948 while outright ETHNIC CLEANSING was underway...

    http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20001102.htm

    Chris Hedges: Reflections on Israel: From Idealism to ETHNIC CLEANSING

    http://www.truthdig.com/report/item...l_from_idealism_to_ethnic_cleansing_20110608/

    Finkelstein: http Israel's ETHNIC CLEANSING part 1:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-TppnsGLo

    John Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker. A darling of the extreme Left, John Pilger is perhaps one of the most vociferous demonizers of the Jewish state in the mainstream media. In his writings on “Palestine”, he regularly equates Israel to Nazi Germany, propagates the “Israel lobby” and Jewish conspiracy lie, accuses Israel of practising racism and ETHNIC CLEANSING and regards Israel as the most dangerous country in the world (after the United States).

    http://cifwatch.com/cif-contributors/john-pilger/



    As far as marriage is concerned its the civil laws which apply to them when they return home, their marriages are upheld and recognized by the Israeli law. Go back and check the last few posts before Bells and I went at it and you'll find these laws.

    As to the latter you cannot find even ONE UN report that claims Israel is engaged in genocide...NOT ONE! But there are droves and droves on ethnic cleansing.

    Stop dealing in propaganda! It makes you as bad as the nation you despise. The truth is truth Sam, you don't need to beef up the claims in order for other's to see abuses are taking place.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2011
  13. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Israel is not Germany or South Africa, and to say it is to both misrepresenting and understating the nature of the problem.
     
  14. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Not to mention the striking difference between Nazi Germany and South African apartheid.
     
  15. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Sounds like a lot of wishful thinking. The facts on the ground don't corroborate it, unfortunately. The US will not stop its fatal foreign policy and I doubt if anyone else will be able to stop Israel from imploding.

    Re: all your concern for authoritarian ME governments, they don't compare with the Israeli democrazy because unlike the ME situation, the Israeli situation is one of popular appeal and public choice.

    If you have the patience to read through it I recommend this excellent analysis by Adam Shatz

    Is Palestine Next?

    Even if you don't get through his entire essay, these points should be considered:

    He goes on to explain the game theory that defines Palestinian consciousness -sumud and I have to say that it makes a lot of sense to me. The dignity of the weak cannot be underestimated.

    No its somewhere in between, not as efficient as the Germans but worse than the South Africans. Still, rest assured, the end result will be the same since neither the efficiency of the Germans nor the length of South African apartheid was sufficient to protect them from the backlash of their policies.
     
  16. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    When will Israeli implode? I mean its managed to last 60 years now, its economy is doing reasonable well, as well as most western nations at least, its managed to last though intensive worse with multiple much larger states attacking it. When exactly is it going to implode and how, dear god how!?!

    Mrs.Lucysnow,

    I've raised the genocide issue with SAM before and there is no learning from her, I recommend we just stop arguing with her as it like arguing with a taped message.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2011
  17. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I give it less than 20 years based on current conditions but give or take 10 years either way. Israel is already ripe for implosion - just see its extreme reaction to a few middle aged and old westerners coming by airplanes to Israel. All the activists had to do is buy a ticket and say they are going to the West Bank and Israel immediately demonstrated to the entire world what kind of occupier it is [see “Air Flotilla” successful in exposing Israeli blockade of West Bank"]

    All that free advertising to the occupation so that people are now aware how bad it is for Palestinians going out* of Israel

    But all that is beside the point, since Israel has never cared about the Palestinians. What will cause Israel to implode is the vote of Israelis

    Contrary to popular Israeli beliefs, the demographic bomb will be exploded by Israelis who leave an untenable situation leaving behind only those extremists with nuclear bombs that their secular counterparts will live in fear of.


    And yeah, Israel's free ride on American shoulders is nearing its end

    $6.64 Billion Damages Sought over Israeli Government and AIPAC Use of Stolen Classified US Trade Data



    It won't be a happy ending either.



    *If you live in Ramallah and want to go 1) to the US or 2) to Jordan you face the following problem.

    1) You need to visit the US Consulate in Jerusalem to get a US visa.
    a) You require a permit from Israel to get to Jerusalem because you live in Ramallah. Result: Most Palestinians sneak across/under the wall to get to the US Consulate since there is none in “Palestinian Territories”
    b) If you want to fly out of Ben Gurion you require a permit from Israel to get to the airport because Palestinians are not allowed through the checkpoint there. Result: You try to go to Jordan (2)

    2) To get to Jordan, you have to go through a) the Israeli controlled checkpoints between Ramallah and the bridge crossing. If you don’t have a permit allowing you to be in that district, you will be turned back. Result: People have to sneak to the border crossing. b) At the border, you are subject to Israeli checkpoint/security. If you are wanted, have family who are wanted, have family who are in prison, have family who have been killed, have been arrested, etc. then the Israelis won’t let you through to go to Jordan. You are stuck in your “country” and blamed for not “recognizing” Israel. (Recognize is code for “absolutely subservience”)

    Overall Result: Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

    source
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2011
  18. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    How do you know what I care about do you have a window into other people's souls? There is enough misery around the world, the Palestinians are only one of them and hardly the worst off. When was the last time you or Sam paid any attention to Southern Sudan for example? North Korea? No?

    Now wait a minute, first you claim that jewish policy is causing Jews to be bred out of existence and now you claim low palestinian birth rate. Which is it? Listening to you there won't be anyone left to inherit the land on either side. But let's take a look shall we:

    *We're going to see who's being a 'lazy git'*

    For many years, Israeli politicians and scholars have warned that the higher birth rate of the country’s Palestinian population may ultimately lead to a state in which Jews become the minority – thereby threatening the very existence of the “Jewish homeland.”

    According to press reports, Israel’s Arab Muslim population is growing at a rate almost double the annual growth of the Jewish population.
    Israel’s population is currently about 75 percent Jewish, with the remaining 25 percent most Arab Muslims (with some Arab Christians and Druze). [These percentages of course exclude the millions of Palestinians living in Gaza and West Bank]

    Dr. Wahid Abd Al-Magid, editor of Al-Ahram's Arab Strategic Report, has predicted that Arabs may become a majority in Israel in 2035, and “will certainly be the majority in 2048."

    Some in Israeli’s Jewish political establishment have already sounded alarms over the issue.

    http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/109021/20110204/israel-arabs-population-demographics.htm

    What I don't understand is how someone who is so concerned for the Palestinian Israeli situation can be so ill-informed.

    Bells: In other words, you are a hypocrite. You are uncomfortable that a Muslim dares to criticise Israel so instead of actually reading what is being discussed, you go after her, even while you admit that you don't disagree with her. But that is how you operate when it comes to Sam and Israel. You'll disregard any abuse she may detail in the discussion and abuse her and you are not alone in this. It is plainly obvious to many Lucy. And something that has been discussed before. I guess I can't expect anything else from a lazy git.


    Ok. Hypocrisy is defined as 'the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.' So let's see, if I don't care about the palestinians and don't show any care for Palestinians which is what you claim then I am not a hypocrite as the definition doesn't apply. Same with your assertion that I am uncomfortable with Sam being a muslim criticizing Israel, that doesn't make one a hypocrite either under its definition. But you have no evidence that I blast Sam out of the water because she's a Muslim. What was my reason for blasting Willnever? Or you? Or Tiassa? Are they muslims too? I agree there are abuses against palestinians by the Israeli state, I disagree with her hyperbolic generalizations and characterizations of jews or complete lies about Israel itselt, completely disagree I should say. Is that something your soft skull has a hard time absorbing?

    Its a good thing you never really became a lawyer, you'd suck at it.

    Bells: You are the type to attack people's children. This is who you are and what you are like.

    Ha! :roflmao:

    Phew! That was funny. You cast negative aspirations on my husband and make as if I married a horse and yet you talk to me of attacking someone's family? Are you serious? I didn't say anything about your family Bells, after your attack on someone I love and who loves me I just asked you if you would like it if someone had done the same. To accuse someone for something you regularly do is what makes you a 'hypocrite', the definition is above for reference since I know you have a difficult time holding those details in your curler-rolled head.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2011
  19. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    I'm up for that since she's not genuinely trying to discuss the issue but rant, it takes the edge off her rage against jews. But I did provide her with the legal definition of ethnic cleansing so she could see how it applies to Israel and challenged her to find one UN paper that uses the term genocide and not ethnic cleansing to describe what's happening there.

    But I'm sure you're right that its a waste of my time.
     
  20. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    No it is something else, with different circumstance altogether. And again some kind of inevitable karma of destruction is a fantasy on your part. Look at North Korea (assuming you would look at anything non-Muslim related) its policies have been totally genocidal to its self with millions of its own people dying of starvation, and yet it continues to go on and on. Nazi Germany did not fall because it murdered all its "unter Leuten", but because the Allied forces overwhelm and crushed it. South Africa did not loss Apartheid rapidly, it was a slow process of several decades due to the increase logistical impossibility of 15% of the population practically enslaving the lower 85%. The collapse of a corrupt or horrible system is not directly determined by how corrupt or horrible it is, in short what takes down the system is not what it does morally wrong, but what it does practically wrong and worse circumstances external can prop it up or collapses it regardless of how good or bad the system is.
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    What does the absence of a paper prove? Israel's genocide is defined by its actions by its desire to wipe out the Palestinians as a nation

    I'm quoting facts not fantasy and you're simply reiterating the arguments I have made. i.e. it is not the moral consequences of its policies that will demolish Israel but the practical realities of the backlash from what it has created.
     
  22. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Excellent summation.
     
  23. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    And not this?


    Ethnic cleansing is the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.

    That definition doesn't apply? Why would the journalists and academics, all the names you claim to trust refer to this situation as ethnic cleansing. And the absence of paper proves a lot because for all the UN resolutions against Israel never once was it formally accused of genocide. Is it that you think Hedges and Pilger and Chomsky, Finkelstein etc are lying? Or maybe they're just stupid? Show of a lack of facts on their part maybe?
     

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