Kerry & Obama Agree Settlements Must Be Stopped, But What Are They Going to Do About It?
Speaking yesterday about his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama appeared to call for a settlement freeze:
OBAMA: Now, Israel is going have to take some difficult steps as well. And I shared with Prime Minister the fact that, under the road map, under Annapolis there’s a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements, that settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That’s a difficult thing to recognize, but it’s an important one. And it has to be addressed. I think the humanitarian situation in Gaza has to be addressed.
Satyam Khanna reminds us that “Speaking to AIPAC last month, Vice President Biden and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) also called on Israel to freeze settlement activity.”
But of course Obama and Biden and Kerry aren’t just bloggers. They’re the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, and the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, respectively. And the United States isn’t a country that lacks leverage or influence over Israel. And yet I see absolutely no sign that the Israeli government is contemplating any kind of settlement freeze. So the question becomes what does the administration intend to do? Making sharp, to-the-point observations about the situation is nice. But the President has a harder job than I do. He can’t just say that “settlements have to be stopped,” he has to find a way to make it happen.
53 Responses to “Kerry & Obama Agree Settlements Must Be Stopped, But What Are They Going to Do About It?”
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May 19th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Sign the 180. Oh, you did. Well, then let us see it. Seriously, who listens to John Kerry anymore?
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May 19th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Or ever did to Joe Biden? And Obama is hardly sounding stellar on foreign policy except to apologize for American exceptionalism.
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May 19th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Now that’s a familiar refrain:
September 16, 1998 Boston Globe
If Israel wants peace, it will need to stop settlements, end land seizures, and offer the Palestinians a larger percent of the occupied territory…
February 6, 1999 Seattle Post Intelligencer
Israel stood alone at the UN General Assembly yesterday, defiantly defending its settlement policies…
April 30, 2000 Jerusalem Post
Peace Now called on Prime Minister Ehud Barak to clamp down on settlement construction and implement the building freeze he imposed in Judea…
May 23, 2001 Christian Science Monitor
“The pressure to stop [or] pause in settlement expansion must come from within the Israeli body politic.”
April 29, 2002 Chicago Tribune
Israel is under international pressure, including from the United States, to stop settlement growth
June 4, 2003 The Times UK “Stop settlements now, Bush tells Israel”
“Israel has got responsibilities,” Mr Bush said on the eve of today’s historic Middle East peace summit. “Israel must deal with the settlements.
May 26, 2005 USA Today
Bush said Israel should “stop settlement expansion” and help “improve the daily lives of Palestinians” by easing checkpoints.
http://arisfreedomswitch.blogspot.com/2009/05/israel-should-stop-building-settlements.html
May 19th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Cut subsidies to Israel? How politically feasible is that?
Time for J-Street to mobilize its membership to reveal if the climate is truly different now. Until younger American Jews prove to the Israeli looby just how serious they are about a two-state solution, then nothing will happen.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Brk, 4. First you have to convince the Palestinian, and, oh yes, the rest of the shiite and sunni world, to favor a two state solution.
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May 19th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Throw them on the list of terrorist supporting countries. There is no rhyme or reason to it anyway. Cuba is on there for no reason at all. Congress can’t do shit about it. We’ll, I’m sure the level of noise out of them would be deafening, but all they could do is squeal.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Israel declares they want peace and want “peace talks”, (which in my view we’re way beyond that),while all the time they keep stealing more land, making the lives of Palestinians more miserable by restrictions,I hope another administration wasn’t fooled by this continual act by Israel.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Since the only thing that has ever halted, slowed or reversed (in Gaza) settlement expansion is violent resistance by Palestinians, a serious program of halting settlements would require arming the West Bank Palestinians. So yeah, not gonna happen.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon. Hopefully, Bibi told President Osama to take his settlement freeze and shove it up his ass.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
There will be no peace in the ME until America is out of the ME. We’ve had 60 years. And look at the results.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Toldja he was a Muslim sleeper agent.
“kim,” it’s 2009. Do you really think anybody gives a crap about the arguments made by swift boaters?
Do you really want to highlight the connection between your ideas and the decision to give George Bush a second term? Because, please, by all means, go right ahead.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I’ve never agreed with the proposition that the expansion of Israeli settlements are a major impediment to serious negotiations. I will say this however: I don’t think Obama is into kabuki. So if he says he thinks it matters, then I believe that he does. Of course Yglesias wants to see him “lay down the law” to those wicked Israelis. I doubt that’s how Obama sees the situation though. He seems to favor pragmatism and effectiveness over posturing and blame-mongering.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
joje, 11. Heh, yeah, sorry, just reminiscing over the glory days of the Bowgunners of August.
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May 19th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Kerry & Obama Agree Settlements Must Be Stopped, But What Are They Going to Do About It?
Obama also believes that the Palestinians must recognize Israel’s right to exist. What is he going to do about it?
May 19th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Re Mythbuster
Unfortunately, because of our dependence on imported oil, we can’t get out of the Middle East. If Mr. Mythbuster thinks that the current recession is bad, think about how bad it would get if terrorists blew up Saudi Arabian pipelines cutting of oil exports from that country.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Hopefully Iran gets a nuke. That might take some steam out of Israel’s bullying.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Re Matthew’s question: “And yet I see absolutely no sign that the Israeli government is contemplating any kind of settlement freeze. So the question becomes what does the administration intend to do?”
——————–
“That’s a nice F16 Air Force you have there. Be a shame if you had to ground it because you couldn’t get parts.
Oh –and did our Pentagon salemen tell you about the secret OFF switch/virus?”
May 19th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
slc wrote:
“Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon. Hopefully, Bibi told President Osama to take his settlement freeze and shove it up his ass.”
he’s right. at their little mini-news conference bibi basically told obama to go take a hike.
all obama will ever do is forward, possibly, a sternly worded letter.
bibi also did something that was actually pretty subtle, but extremely important. something that most observers seem to have missed.
he kept referring to the fact that obama agreed with him completely on iran and then he pivoted and said that all options for iran were on the table and had to be on the table. essentially, he was committing obama to support for any future military action he might take. and while he did this, obama said nothing specific about it, probably because he doesn’t want to go on the record and say that he totally opposes a military strike on iran.
or possibly he does support a military strike and was more than happy to let bibi’s statements on the issue stand.
every day, obama is revealing himself to be just as morally bankrupt and corrupt as bush ever was.
what a shame.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Obama is all about kabuki. He cries financial reform while Treasury allows private equity firms to buy majority stakes in S & L’s and credit unions.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Haven’t you heard? There’s a recession – a long, slow, lazy tsunami of a recession? How can we justify aid to Israel in these circumstances
What do we get out of it? I for one don’t see what foreign aid to Israel buys me personally, and I would wager that your average man-in-the-street doesn’t either. Put it like that, and it becomes very feasible, I would think. Because, let’s face it, there really isn’t a whole lot that dinky little state has to offer us; throwing money at that country is like taking Pepto Bismol for a bleeding ulcer.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Much as I’d love it, Congress wld be in a total conniption over any attempt to link our subsidies to a settlement freeze. As Menachim once said to Ronnie re a plane deal, “You convince the public and I’ll take care of Congress”. Nonetheless a few quiet gracious hints along this line by the administration might powerfully concentrate the Likkud mind.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
A freeze on settlements is far from adequate; it is in danger of being seen as legitimizing past settlement activity (ie bald-faced land grabs). No serious two-state solution is possible until settlements are rolled back to *at least* 1967 borders.
Israel will never do that and the US will never make Israel do that.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Keep talking while they keep building.
They will stop building when all the land is gone and the Palestinians have all been shunted off to Gaza.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Kerry & Obama Agree Settlements Must Be Stopped, But What Are They Going to Do About It?
Jack shit.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
The bottom line? Israel has given up land in the hope of peace before. They withdrew from the Sinai. They withdrew from Lebanon. They withdrew from Gaza. They have offered multiple times to withdraw from the majority of their settlements in the West Bank, and provide negotiated compensation for the land they retain. That offer was on the table was just last year. The people who see settlements as the overwhelming obstacle to peace seem to want to ignore all this history. They also appear to have a visceral need to ignore Palestinian roadblocks to a two state solution, such as the Right of Return issue. They seem impelled to ignore the chaos of the Palestinian leadership. Their view of Hamas goals, aims and methods is strikingly rosy, particularly compared with their reflexive tendency to view all things Israeli in the worse possible light. Its as if their determined to blame everything on Israel. Imagine that…..
May 19th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Israel got peace with Egypt for withdrawing its military from the Sinai. They agreed to a border in their peace deal with Jordan:
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Israel-Jordan+Peace+Treaty.htm
The Arab League Peace plan, i.e. Israeli peace with Arab states, sat on a shelf gathering dust since its introduction in 2002.
Bibi Netanyahu said Obama would offer another peace plan. I don’t think a shortage of plans is the problem. There is a lack of leadership on both sides to deliver. The U.S. tampers by playing divide and conquer.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Over half of Congress attended the Monday Night Gala at AIPAC.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Its as if their determined to blame everything on Israel.
Yeah, everybody hates fucking Jews. That’s what you are saying. Just spell out your victimism and special pleading, nothing quite gets on my nerves like the way that gets tiptoed around instead of put explicitly.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I also think it gets tiptoed around because it implies a massive, global, anti-semitic conspiracy of Israeli policy in nearly every nation on earth that is on it’s face ridiculous and risible.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Alan, I don’t think there’s any shortage of plans either. In fact, a Two State Solution has been there to see since 2000. Israel withdraws from the vast majority of the West Bank. They compensate the Palestinians for the areas they retain. A limited number of Palestinian refugees are allowed to return to Israel, while the remaining settle in the new Palestine and receive compensation. Jerusalem is divided as the capitol of both states with some kind of international control over the holy areas common to both peoples. So what is holding this up? Not those Wicked Jews, or Western Imperialist Colonizing Warmongers, or Apartheid Racist Theocratic Tyrants, or whatever bogeyman occupies the fevered imagination of many commentators on this board, but several mundane facts: (1)The Israeli people have given up on peace- to a degree & for now. The Palestinian leadership temporized in 2000, when they had both Israeli and U.S. leaders ready to negotiate and compromise on all issues (the issue of whether there was a “perfect deal” being a strawman). The withdrawal from Gaza is by Israelis as a warning of what would happen if they give up the West Bank. The Palestinian leadership is seen as incapable of controlling the radical factions of their own people enough to enforce a peace from their end. (2) No Palestinian leader has ever shown the slightest ability or willingness to take the terms of a potential deal to his people, particular with regard to an unlimited Right of Return. Arafat wouldn’t, neither will any of his successors. (3) There is no united Palestinian leadership, and Israel does not believe Hamas can be trusted.
Ed, if you want to dispute any of my humble logic, try suppling some of your own, will ya? The only person I see here going all weepy with a victimhood act is you. As for the FACT that many on this board have an emotional need to blame Israel to the point of pathology only requires you read the comments. In fact, I confess to a morbid fascination with the Freakshow which appears, on both sides of the issue, whenever our host put up another post on the subject.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
He won’t do anything.
As Atrios says, another chapter of easy answers to easy questions.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
“Israel got peace with Egypt for withdrawing its military from the Sinai. They agreed to a border in their peace deal with Jordan”
Israel only gives up what it doesn’t want. The only reason they were in the Sinai was to take control of the Suez Canal. When that didn’t work, the Sinai was just a worthless piece of land that could be used as a bargaining chip. Same goes for the hellhole we call Gaza. Israel does want the West Bank, so there will be no compromise with the Palestinians. The want the Shebaa Farms, so there will be no compromise with Lebanon. The only possible compromise is on the Golan Heights. Israel doesn’t really want it, they just want to make sure that Syria never gets it. So they’d let it be internationally administered as long as Syria has no say in it whatsoever.
As for what Obama will do about it, he’ll do nothing. It’s just not politically possible to do anything but kiss Israel’s ass.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
But Fostert, Israel has already offered to give up ninety percent of the West Bank, and provide land swaps for that part they keep. They’ve offered this as part of a comprehensive Two State Solution more than once. Is it possible you don’t know this? Or are facts just too inconvenient for you to bother with? Here’s a bonus question: If the very substance about which you post is utterly meaningless – bearing no relationship to reality – so easy disproved as it is here – why on earth do you bother? What about venting your spleen against the state of Israel makes such a sorry exercise in counterfactual nonsense worth it?
May 19th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Israel has given up land in the hope of peace before.
I think you mean “given back land”. Have they ever given up any part of the 1948 boundaries? (Never mind whether the British had the authority to give even *that* much Palestinian land away… eventually, all the remaining refugees from that displacement will just die off and there’ll be no problem, right?) Or have all of their magnanimous concessions consisted solely of *parts* of what they have seized by force since the original formation of Israel by imperialist decree?
In a weird way, Israel is the last gasp of colonialism; IIRC, most Israeli Jews are of European descent. British India was eventually given back to the Indians, but British Palestine still isn’t in the hands of the Palestinians. And the natives are restless.
This is all history, of course – but if it’s history that people who live there now care about, then it’s history that matters.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Chris, if you really want to say Israel – alone of all the nations on the Planet Earth – is illegitimate and should commit suicide so we can all sing Kumbala in a world free of Western Imperialism – hey – knock yourself out. One might ask why Israel – alone of all the nations on the Planet Earth – should have to make this noble sacrifice, but I won’t bother. Two points: First, you obliviously have much greater things to muse over than an achievable peace in the Middle East. Second, I jumped into this mix saying that Israel is held to a different standard in this forum than there adversaries. Would you mind if I used you as an example how Israel is held to different standards than anybody?
May 19th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
“They’ve offered this as part of a comprehensive Two State Solution more than once.”
Yeah, but the devil is always in the details. They never offered any part of Jerusalem, they never offered any compensation for the Palestinians driven off their land in Israel proper, and the land swaps they offer are not of equal value. Israel’s position on land swaps is that Israel gets to keep the fertile land, and Palestinians get useless desert in exchange. And then there’s the water rights. Israel already has almost all of the water despite the fact that we are talking about roughly equal populations. In these agreements, they wanted even more water rights. As for the 90% of the West Bank they offer, that would be criss-crossed with Jew-Only Highways, making Palestine a collection of isolated communities with border checkpoints in between. They are offering a bargain that is suicide for the Palestinians. So they know the Palestinians would rather commit suicide using bombs. And the Israelis are content to live with that. Unless Israel offers to return to the 1967 borders that were already very unfair to the Palestinians who originally lived there, you cannot say that Israel has ever made a good faith offer. There offer is simple: we get the good land, you get the bad land, and we get to control your movements through your land. Let’s put this bluntly: my house is worth $600K, so how about I trade it with you for property worth $2 million on the condition that I can enter my old house at will and tell you what you can do with it. And we’ll call it an even trade. You up for that? You think it’s fair for the Palestinians, so surely it would be fair for yourself, no? And now you can’t ever accuse me of not making an offer, so I now have the right to firebomb your house.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Fostert, So lets see…Ninety percent of the West Bank is “useless desert”, huh? And there was no discussion of Jerusalem divided in Camp David or Taba, right? And you – Fostert – know what percentage of “water rights” were proposed in these negotiations, eh? And those devious Israelis are torpedoing any chance of peace because their land swaps fall three or four percentage points shy of a perfect match in what was never more than preliminary negotiations – that’s what your saying? And all of this – ninety plus percent of the West Bank, land swaps – proposals for dividing Jerusalem – equals “suicide” for the Palestinians, eh?
Tell me: How does it feel to be so full of s**t? You’ve abandoned your “position” that Israel will never negotiate over the West Bank – and in favor of what? For New and Improved counterfactual nonsense. Understand: I do not say a perfect deal was ever on the table for the Palestinians. Some of the issues you, raise such as contiguous land and water rights, will require intense and prolonged bargaining before both sides can find a compromise. What I do say is the Israels have put every issue on the table in the past. Which is true. Which is precisely what you originally denied, truth be damned. Now go look up whether – for instance – a divided Jerusalem has been offered by Israel and come back to me with YET another revised tirade…..
May 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Re Alan
The trouble with the so-called Arab peace plan is the language calling for a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. Mr. Alan is apparently unaware that that is Arab speak for resettle the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Israel. No Israeli government will agree to such a demand and a government that did so under pressure from the US would be voted out of power in a New York minute.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
So grb, not willing to take my offer? Well you are obviously not someone willing to negotiate. I don’t even know why I’d bother to talk to you, but I will. I should just airbomb you like Israel wold do.
“And there was no discussion of Jerusalem divided in Camp David or Taba, right?”
There was a discussion, and Israel rejected outright with no possibility of compromise in the Camp David talks.
“And those devious Israelis are torpedoing any chance of peace because their land swaps fall three or four percentage points shy of a perfect match in what was never more than preliminary negotiations – that’s what your saying?”
It’s not a question of how much land, it’s what the land was. Look, I’ll buy land and trade it with you. Now I’m making another serious land trade offer which by your standards you must accept. I’ll trade you an acre of land in the Nevada desert for your offer of 3/4 an acre of land in upstate New York. That’s a better deal than the Israelis offered. And since I’ve given you two offers now, I get to firebomb your mother’s house too. You wouldn’t accept my perfectly reasonable offer before, so now I know you’re being unreasonable. The next offer will be less reasonable to help convince you that I’m being just as serious as the Israelis.
“What I do say is the Israels have put every issue on the table in the past.”
That is emphatically not true. When the Israelis have negotiated, most issues are off the table before anyone sits at it. Tell where Israel has offered up any portion of Jerusalem. Tell me where Israel has offered up compensation for the 1948 ethnic cleansing. Tell me how Israel has offered to give the Jew-Only Highways to the Palestinians for their own use. Tell me how Israel has ever offered a contiguous Palestinian state. Tell me how Israel will go back to the 1967 borders that are internationally mandated. And then I’ll give you an easy one: Tell me how Israel deserved to have the land in the first place.
I’ve given you six things to explain about the Israeli offers. If you can explain two of them, I’ll grant that you aren’t stupid. And one of them is pretty much a gimme.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
“And one of them is pretty much a gimme.”
And the one that’s a gimme, I’ll answer it: The Israelis need that land because they need a place where they won’t be slaughtered by Christians. For Jews, they’ll be surrounded by another religion wherever they go. And the Muslims are the least likely to kill them, so they really should be in the middle of Muslim lands.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
The U.S. should write a sternly worded letter to Israel asking them to stop settlement development.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Geez, you’re really a piece of work, aren’t you Fostert? I see at the latest Isaeli post on this site you’ve regressed back to garbage like this: “With Israel, it is simple: the lands between the Jordan and the Mediterranean will be inhabited by Jews, and the Arabs will leave.” It appears truth to you is situational. There you can get away with what you were forced to abandon here, so you do. May I remind you we started with you saying Israel would never negotiate over the West Bank. Now you’re reduced to saying yes, Israel offered over ninety percent of the West Bank in negotiations and yes, they offered compensation for almost entire remaining ten percent, but their initial offer in the earliest preliminary talks wasn’t generous enough, so it somehow the whole negotiation never existed. Is it any wonder I can’t help treating you like a clown?
As for Jerusalem, I’ll quote from the Wikapedia Taba Summit entry for convenence: “Both sides accepted in principle the Clinton suggestion of having a Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods and an Israeli sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Both sides favored the idea of an open city. The Israeli side accepted that Jerusalem would be the capital of the two states: Yerushalaim, capital of Israel and Al-Quds, capital of the state of Palestine. Both parties accepted the principle of respective control over each side’s respective holy sites. Israel’s sovereignty over the Western Wall would be recognized although there remained a dispute regarding the delineation of the area covered by the Western Wall and especially the link to what is referred to in Clinton’s ideas as the space sacred to Judaism of which it is part. Both sides agreed that the question of Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount has not been resolved.” Please, go look it up, check the references. I’ll be here yawning……
Now, given your scant regard for facts, I have no doubt you’ll try to retreat to yet another back-up position to yet again avoid facing facts. It seems to be what you do. And I have to say, given the ease I can push you off your “positions”, it’s all just entertainment to me. But my initial question remains: Why do you even bother? Why say something in the latest comments list you’ve already had to abandon here? What kind of pathetic satisfaction can you possibly get from your silly games?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
““With Israel, it is simple: the lands between the Jordan and the Mediterranean will be inhabited by Jews, and the Arabs will leave.” It appears truth to you is situational. There you can get away with what you were forced to abandon here, so you do.”
No, you need to understand that I understand what is right, and what will happen, and those aren’t the same things.
“Now you’re reduced to saying yes, Israel offered over ninety percent of the West Bank in negotiations and yes,”
No, I said they’d offer the 90% so long as that 90% where broken up into small communities divided by highways that Arabs can’t cross without going through an international checkpoint.
“but their initial offer in the earliest preliminary talks wasn’t generous enough, so it somehow the whole negotiation never existed.”
I never said the negotiations didn’t exist, I said they existed with Israeli preconceptions. And when the negotiations happened, they simply rejected nearly everything outright.
“I’ll be here yawning……”
Yawn all you want. But given Wikipedia’s concept of reliaty, I’m not so sure it’s accurate. But your own quotes deny your position:
“BOTH parties accepted the principle of respective control over each side’s respective holy sites”
“BOTH parties accepted the principle of respective control over each side’s respective holy sites.”
“ISREAL’S sovereignty over the Western Wall would be recognized although there remained a dispute regarding”
The dispute being that Israel retains the right to destroy the Mosque during any of their archeological diggings.
“The ISREALI side accepted that Jerusalem would be the capital of the two states”
Except it doesn’t now.
“BOTH sides agreed that the question of Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount has not been resolved.”
It’s been resolved now. Israel will take full control whether the Arabs like it or not. Bibi made his statement years ago when he walked on the Muslim portion. He’ll make it again with tanks. I’ll grant that this hasn’t actually happened yet, but it will.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
And you need to understand that Haram al-Sharif is completly off limits to Jews. That’s just too holy a site for the Muslims to give up. Unless the Jews can prove that the Temple Mount is really where the the original Temple was. If that’s the case, then we’ll talk. But it’s really sad that there are two religions that are so weak that they only exist where their statues are. But the Muslims know where Mohammed left the earth to receive the prayer times, and it really is that place. Except that he obviously didn’t leave the earth, and he didn’t do it on a winged horse. But he did deliver the sermon after. And that’s where he did it. The Jews can’t really say that that’s really where the Temple was. It’s okay to believe, but if you have some proof, let’s see it.
“It’s been resolved now. Israel will take full control whether the Arabs like it or not.”
On that, we agree. It will be a recreation of the Book of Joshua, the greatest justification of genocide ever. And genocide it will be, and it really will be on a scale much large than Joshua’s bloodthirsty mind cold ever imagine. How such a cold blooded genocidal maniac would ever become a religious figure is beyond me. But it’s good for the Jews. Joshua did what Hitler would later do. It’s just priceless isn’t it? Two religions justifying genocide against other religions. But it’s just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And the Israelis should caution themselves now. Do they really want to claim to be the the only culture to do it twice?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Oh, and grb, I asked you defend six Israeli concepts. So far, you are at zero. You have not addressed anything. Care to give a single one of those a try?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Wow, quick work, Fostert! So now it’s all Wikapedia’s fault, huh? You sure you wouldn’t rather do the adult thing and simply admit you were wrong? But then, what’s left? You’ve managed to equivocate away ninety plus percent of the West Bank. You’re totally wrong on Jerusalem. And your one sad little talking point is that the Israelis have never started with a perfect deal for the Palestinians. Never mind they put a divided Jerusalem on the table. Never mind they put a return of ninety percent of the West Bank on the table. Never mind they put compensation for the remaining ten percent on the table. And one more thing: You can go back to Wikadepia and see the ‘48 refugee problem was addressed, though it’s by far the most contentious issue standing in the way of a Two State Solution. But all that’s irrelevant to you, isn’t it? You want an excuse for your hate and the thinest reed of an excuse will do. An excuse to hate. Like I said, pathetic. Let me quote you from above:
“The Israelis need that land because they need a place where they won’t be slaughtered by Christians. For Jews, they’ll be surrounded by another religion wherever they go. And the Muslims are the least likely to kill them, so they really should be in the middle of Muslim lands.”
It’s no wonder the person who wrote that has difficulty dealing with facts. The person who wrote that has some very extreme problems. Not only his view of reality seriously warped, but he lacks even the rudimentary self control to at least attempt to hide it. I’m not a Doctor, Fostert, so I can’t help you. All I can do is knock your arguments down as soon as you put’em up.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Fostert, as for your claiming I haven’t addressed your points, that’s meaningless, and you know it. And I suspect it causes you problems. But here’s something I find fascinating: In Camp David there was a Israeli leader prepare to make all the compromises for a final deal. There was a US president who was, bless his heart, foaming at the mouth to broker a comprehensive peace. And there was the Palestinian leadership, who saw this opportunity and chose to run out the clock. It is thought Chairman Arafat preferred to go to the end of his days as his people’s revolutionary leader, rather than the man who compromised and gave them an imperfect reality, rather than their perfect dream. Be that or not, he was famous at Camp David for saying ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to avoid substantial negotiations. His most comical dithering – everyone agrees – was his attempt to claim the remains of Temple of Jerusalem weren’t the remains of the Temple of Jerusalem. What or earth could he have hoped to accomplish with this nonsense? Nothing. He was just trying to fill time with empty words. And here you are, Fostert, repeating this childish & asinine exercise. Go figure.
There was so much possibility at Camp David. They were so close at the following talks in Taba. But, as they say, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Since then a revisionist history has arose that it wasn’t all the Palestinian’s fault, most notably in a series of articles in the New York Review of Books. I honestly think this argument was done by men of good will, concerned one-sided recriminations of the past might impede a renewal of serious peace talks. But their logic was pretty lean. Basically they said the Palestinians didn’t trust the Israeli – wow, big surprise there, huh – and that the Israeli deal offered was never sufficient for a final peace. Yeah. I’m shocked (shocked!) that Israelis, coming to the table having given up their old position on an undivided Jerusalem, and given up their old position on keeping the West Bank, had the temerity not to offer a perfect deal. They honestly expected the Palestinians to negotiate! Which they weren’t prepared to do.
The revisionist history is an excuse. Just like all of your endless excuses, Fostert….
May 19th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
“So now it’s all Wikapedia’s fault, huh?”
Umm, no. I just said that Wikipedia’s results are questionable. And I addressed some of the questions I had.
“You’ve managed to equivocate away ninety plus percent of the West Bank.”
No, I demonstrated that Isreal’s claim to grant 90% means that they will create a spiderweb of highways that isolated each community into places that cannot interact with each other without going through Israeli checkpoints, and given that you cannot refute that concept, I’ll assume that you agree with me that the Israelis mean to use this to subjugate the Palestinians. If you do not agree with this, then address me on this point rather than making bullshit frivolity.
“You can go back to Wikadepia and see the ‘48 refugee problem was addressed”
It was addressed in the concept that a few Palestinian politicians would be paid off so they wouldn’t raise a stink. Want to talk about the other hundred million people? Do they just not matter? I’ll grant you that those powerful Palestinians screwed their own people. But who screwed the rest of them?
“And your one sad little talking point is that the Israelis have never started with a perfect deal for the Palestinians”
The Israelis have started with the talking point the they get to have 2/3 of the Palestinian lands. Then they took more land in the 1967 war and are now negotiating that they get to keep that too. And now they are saying that they get to take more at their will. At what point do the Israelis get to keep taking land and we say their done? Do they get all of Florida and New York too?
“Never mind they put a return of ninety percent of the West Bank on the table”
As I’ve explained before, they didn’t. They only put a selection of Bantustans on the table. It would be a collection of Palestinian communities that would be divided by Jew-Only Highways.
“But all that’s irrelevant to you, isn’t it?”
No it’s not. They are human beings that didn’t deserve this treatment, and it’s my responsibility to speak for them. I really don’t care whatever your religion says, because it either says bad things or didn’t educate you well. But I believe that all human beings deserve rights, even those of different religions. And if anyone is being abused by other people, it’s my responsibility to say so.
“You want an excuse for your hate and the thinest reed of an excuse will do.”
I hate nobody, even despicable people like you. Bless you.
“It’s no wonder the person who wrote that has difficulty dealing with facts. The person who wrote that has some very extreme problems. Not only his view of reality seriously warped, but he lacks even the rudimentary self control to at least attempt to hide it. I’m not a Doctor, Fostert, so I can’t help you. All I can do is knock your arguments down as soon as you put’em up.”
Show me some evidence where Christians have treated the Jews better than the Muslims have, and I can offer up otherwise. Wherever the Christians have invaded the Jews that lived moved to Muslim lands. Where they didn’t the Christians either killed them or subjugated them. Tell me how the Christian land of Germany treated the Jews so well during World War II. Tell me how the Christians of Spain and Portugal treated the Jews so well during the Inquisitions. Tell me how the Christians treated the Jews so well when they went on the Crusades. And let’s just get down to it: tell me one example before 1944 of how the Christians treated the local population well when they ever invaded. It never happened. And if you even try to pull up India’s occupation of India, I’ll shoot you down fast. And that was England’s most gentle invasion. What they did to Portuguese Catholics was light compared to what they did to the Hindus and Muslims. And what the Portuguese did to the Saint Thomas Christians was heavy compared to what the Hindus did to Saint Thomas. At least the Hindus had the generosity and respect to kill him lightly. A spike to the base of the skull, which takes out the medulla oblongata so quickly that you feel no pain. The Christians tortured people and then burned them at the stake alive. So who are the nasty people again? And let’s make it clear, the Christians are still the people most likely to support torture.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
GRB, no one buys your spittle and frothing but, relative to world population, a very small handful of people. EVERYONE ELSE on the face of the earth thinks it’s prima facie nonsense. Why? Because it is nonsense. Do yourself a favor: calm down and put your energy elsewhere. Stop constructing specious arguments, stop slanting the evidence, and above all, stop making things up. You’ll be happier.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
“Want to talk about the other hundred million people?”
Oops, that’s an editing error. It’s really about four hundred thousand people. I was writing to fast. And I made two errors with one sentence.
But you still haven’t addressed any of the six original concerns. And I’m only asking for two. So you are still being less cooperative than the Palestinians, so I get to firebomb another family member’s house, because that’s what the Israelis would do. Got a sister?
May 20th, 2009 at 12:35 am
“Not only his view of reality seriously warped, but he lacks even the rudimentary self control to at least attempt to hide it.”
As for the self control to hide it, I hide nothing. I don’t live a lie, and I will get into sketchy situations where it ain’t pretty. I see things how they are and I call them as I see them. As a result, I know how to duck or block a punch. They come often, so I’ve learned. But you GHB my beer, and I don’t even want to think about what might have happened. But I’m not afraid to call it like it is. It gets really rough when you make the argument that Slovaks are basically poorly educated farmers that need to focus more on their science and technology education in their public schools. And I’m doing this in a bar in Bratislava. In that argument, I lost sixty US dollars, two hundred euros, two thousand Slovak koruny, a tooth, and any pride I had. All in the back alley. And the GHB made sure I wouldn’t remember any of it. If the cops who typed up the police report that now hangs on my wall had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t know. But given that the police station is two doors away, I’m sure they were the ones who did it. But that’s the kind of level that I live on. I operate with no judgment, discrimination, or fear. It’s the desire issue I’m working on. I’m not worried about whether I live or die, and I’m certainly not worried about what people think of me.
So is my view of reality really warped? Well, I’ll let you tell me after you understand a simple concept. Reality is only what the local population thinks it is. Everything that happens can be viewed through many perspectives. And they are often very different, but usually still congruent. So the views of reality that I have experienced are very wide. They are wide enough that I should be normal in one of them. Well, some of the time. Turns out, I know the word ‘crazy’ in twenty languages. Because I get called that. And they’re right, I really am bipolar and don’t take medicines. And that’s because I’m prone to seizures because I’ve had too many skull injuries. But that doesn’t make my reality any less real. I’ve predicted every presidential election since 1972. And I predicted Clinton’s win before he announced his candidacy (and Bush was still at 90% approval). I predicted the last two Iranian elections, and the last four Israeli elections. So call me crazy, I really am. When you sane people get your shit together and figure out the world, I’ll follow you. But until then, let us crazy folk deal with it.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:21 am
And if you think GHB is a joke, think again. I’ve taken any drug you can think of, and some you can’t. And nothing prepared me for that. It hits you quick. All the sudden, something isn’t quite right, and you have just enough time to say “Something’s wrong, I need he…. And then you’re on the ground still wanting to get up and finish that word ‘help,’ but you can’t do it. Then someone takes you away. What happens then, you will never remember. All I know is that I woke up in an alley in the rain with my wallet gone, a missing tooth, and an amount of bruises that was truly astounding. I couldn’t figure out where the pain was coming from because it was everywhere. It was painful enough that I didn’t even notice the missing tooth until I saw it in the mirror. And then thought this: Wow, I don’t want to know what happened, because it obviously ain’t pretty. But then the police came, and I really did have to deal with it.
Anyone who wants to talk torture, look, I’ve been through some of the techniques. By random foreign mafias. And I’ve been interrogated with legitimate techniques. We prefer the Russian mafia techniques, but they don’t work. The way to get the information is with spies. And the best spies are always women. And the best women spies are prostitutes. My great aunt played that game. And she won for us. Talk about taking one for the team.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Slovaks! Torture! Random foreign mafias!! Melodrama in back alleys! Your aunt the prostitute spy! Eerie election prognostications!
Oh my!