Clinton Denies Knowledge of Secret Bush-Era Agreement on Settlements
Talking to ABC News’ George Stephanoupoulos in an interviewed aired earlier today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied the existence of any record of an alleged secret Bush-era deal with the Israeli government granting them a loophole out of their public, international agreement to halt settlement activity.
Meanwhile, to be clear about why this issue is important it’s not that a settlement freeze will bring about peace. Rather, it’s that any kind of realistic peace agreement will require the dismantling of many settlements. And if the Israeli government doesn’t have the willingness—or the political will—to so much as freeze expansion, then there’s no way they’ll be able to do the dismantling. And, similarly, if there are arguments which hold that freezing expansion is wrong or impossible on the merits, then those same arguments imply that the settlements can never go. That totally poisons the water for peace.
67 Responses to “Clinton Denies Knowledge of Secret Bush-Era Agreement on Settlements”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 7th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Once again confirming the advice: always get it in writing.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Whether there were secret agreements or not is irrelevant.
Executive orders can be invalidated by a new president.
This is just more likudnik bs.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
DTM-
Or as Louis B. Mayer famously once said: “an oral agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
June 7th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
The settlements is Gaza were never frozen before they were dismantled.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
What’s this “peace” thing? The Arab League has already stated long time ago that they will fully recognize Israel as soon as it abides the law: returns the territories occupied in 1967 and implements a just solution of the refugees’ problem.
And that’s it, that’s what “peace” is; and there’s nothing to it other than Israel doing what’s required by international law.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Re KLS
Actually, that’s not true. An oral agreement is just as valid as a written agreement and, if other corroboration can be supplied (e.g. witnesses), are just as enforceable in court.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Re abb1
A “just solution” to the problem of Fakestinians living in refugee camps is Arab speak for resettle them in Israel. Since this is tantamount to the Government of Israel going out of business, it is a non-starter and no Israeli government will ever accept such a demand. If that is unsatisfactory to Mr. abb1, tough noogies.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Not to get sidetracked on legal trivia, but under the standard statute of frauds in most every state an oral agreement to be peformed over a period longer than a year is unenforceable. But that’s not what the saying is getting at. You sign a contract in the hope (and these days it’s a faint hope) of certainty. Without a writing, you get a he said, she said debate that usually has to be resolved at trial. Any business strategy that provides a ticket to trial to resolve disputes is a stupid business strategy.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
“Rather, it’s that any kind of realistic peace agreement will require the dismantling of many settlements.”
It will require the removal of all c. 400,000 settlers, not just a few ’settlements’.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
7 is correct: at this time the only obstacle to peace left is Zionist Israeli government; the only way to achieve peace is to remove Zionists from the government, and that’s all there is to it.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
SLC,
“Just solution” is just code for “Give us something to show to our people”, otherwise, they would have used much more inflammatory and direct rhetoric. There are a number of “just solutions” that the Israelis could accept.
For example, if Israel wanted to limit the demographic impact, they could distinguish between Palestinians who ran away for their safety and Palestinians who were directly kicked out of their homes by the IDF (Mainly from Ramle and Lydda). Explicit explusions only accounted for about 15% of refugees, and since the Palestinians have kept extensive villiage records, it wouldn’t be too difficult to selectively offer citizenship to people who were expelled.
This would leave about 500,000 eligible Palestinians, most of whom wouldn’t come(polling on the issue shows around 10-20% would take it up). I don’t see that as demographically devastating…
June 7th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Led beat me to citing the Statute of Frauds, so what I will note is that while a President can unilaterally (without Senate ratification) provide assurances to foreign government about his intentions, such assurances aren’t binding on subsequent Administrations.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Of course, you can imagine that an Israeli leader was talking to Bush Jr. and brought up the issue of the settlements and Bush Jr. was all, “OK, whatever,” and this was seen as a tacit agreement.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
What the fuck is “demographic impact”? I don’t like openly racist swine, but I must say: what I really, really despise is euphemistic racist swine.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Condoleeza Rice also denied any secret Bush-era agreements back in April of 2008 when Israel made the same argument. The only ones saying there was an agreement are Israel and Elliott Abrams. There was no agreement.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Any contract implies an exchange. What is it that the US was supposed to get out of such a contract?
June 7th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Meanwhile, to be clear about why this issue is important it’s not that a settlement freeze will bring about peace.
False. In fact, it’s not important at all. Because even if some secret agreement exists, it is NOT BINDING on the current administration.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Re David Shor
OK, how about the Jews who were kicked out of Arab countries? That number was at least as great as the number of Fakestinians that Mr. Shor is talking about. Therefore, consider it an exchange of populations, just like India and Pakistan. Let the Fakestinians living in refugee camps move into the homes that the Jews in Arab countries used to occupy. And if Mr. abb1 wants to come on and dispute the accusation of kicked out, I posted a link some time ago which shows him to be a liar.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
SLC,
I’m a Moroccan jew myself, both of my parents fled from Morocco and, funny enough, ended up living in “abandoned” homes(my mom grew up in Lyd…Lod).
First, on a factual basis, your numbers are wrong. There were a little under five times more Palestinian refugees created since 1948 than Jewish ones. In terms of outright expulsions, there were nearly twice as many.
But this is beside the point! Expelling the Palestinians was wrong. So was the expulsion of the Sephardi Jews. But that doesn’t make the expulsion of the Palestinians any less wrong!!
We have a responsibility to right a historical wrong to the Palestinians, and this responsibility is entirely independent of what others have done to us. Frankly, that’s a lesson that you should have learned by kindergarten. How exactly to reach a just settlement is complicated, but the need for at least symbolic gestures is indisputable.
And as an unrelated point, Morocco, like most a good number of Arabic countries, have a right of return. I have several relatives who have returned to Morocco and enjoy it there.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
[...] Obama se está tomando en serio el problema, y en contra de sus antecesores, lo que dicen es lo que realmente quieren que suceda. [...]
June 7th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Oh yes once again the current regime wants to distract us all with a sideshow.
Well was it written down or not?
Is there not even a taped conversation?
No notes from a meeting?
What did the Clintonistas know and when did they say it?
WHO GIVES A FUCK?
The only question is what will ObaFuhrer do to bend the Zionists to his will?
NOTHING is what!
Does anyone think ObaFuhrer will risk the wrath of the Israel Lobby for the sake of some fucking towelheads?
Has everyone forgotten his lickspittle performance during the campaign?
Have we not learned that what you bought is what you bought?
Jeez ObaFuhrer threw gay America under the bus. What in god’s name makes you think he’ll do more for the Palestinians?
June 7th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
How exactly to reach a just settlement is complicated
Really? And what is so terribly complicated about it? I would very much like to know.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Abb1,
In my perfect world, I’d extend the right of return to all people of Palestinian descent and invest massive amounts of aid into a functional and safe Palestinian state.
But we don’t have a functional and safe Palestinian state yet, and we are not anywhere close to one. While we were once at the point where Israel could make things right via unilateral action, the West Bank is now too unstable for any kind of program to be simple.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Program? What program? Palestinian state? What does it have to do with a Palestinian state and West Bank?
The refugees come back to where they lived before 1948, they submit their claims, they get their property back and get compensated for the stuff that was plundered and/or destroyed; and that’s the whole program. Doesn’t seem especially complicated to me.
The UN compensation commission created after the Iraq-Kuwait war processed 1.5 million claims for about $50 billion. Worked like a charm.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Re David Shor
It is my understanding that some 800,000 Fakestinians left what is now Israel for whatever reason and some 750,000 Jews left various Arab Countries for whatever reason (250,000 from Iraq alone). Does Mr. Shor seriously want us to believe that any of the descendants of those expelled from Iraq have the slightest desire to return? Considering that, after the US troops depart, there will be a civil war in Iraq in which hundreds of thousands of Shiias, Sunnis, and Kurds will be killed, I seriously doubt that. Be all that as it may, there is not the slightest possibility that any Fakestinians living in refugee camps will be allowed to resettle in Israel, so that the whole discussion is academic.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Obama and Clinton see “troubling trends” for Israel.
Barack Obama, NPR interview – June 1, 2009:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104806528
I believe that, strategically, the status quo is unsustainable when it comes to Israeli security; that, over time, in the absence of peace with the Palestinians, Israel will continue to be threatened militarily and will have enormous problems along its borders.
Hillary Clinton, CNN interview – June 7, 2009:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/07/clinton.obama/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
We see historical, demographic, political, technological trends that are very troubling as to Israel’s future. At the same time, there is a legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people that needs to be addressed.
Obama and Clinton seem to think if Israel doesn’t offer a state Abbas can accept soon, the US will not be in a position to ensure the viability of Israel as a Jewish state.
It looks like Israel doesn’t share the US’ urgency about moving forward before it’s too late. But once the US decides it’s too late, it’s over. We’re left with one Jewish-minority state.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
abb1,
The window for the kind of program you are talking about passed a very very long time ago. The kuwait-iraq claims were processed within a decade, it’s been over 60 years since 1948.
On a more practical note, Israel is a drastically different place then it was in 1948. Former towns are now forests, villages cities, etc. Due to Israel’s rapid industrialization, it would be about as workable as giving Algonquin Indians ownership over Manhattan.
Moreover, most people involved have already died. So for every bit of “stolen” land, there will be 3 generations worth of potential claimants. And it’s not like deeds were very well kept at the time.
And of course, I’m humoring you and assuming that somehow, the entire IDF has magically disappeared…
More importantly, expelling Israeli’s from their current home is wrong. As a general rule of thumb, expelling people from their homes for political reasons is *wrong*. And yes, that includes people who live in settlements. Figuring out ways to right historical wrongs without creating new injustice is hard precisely for this reason.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
SLC,
Jews left over over a 30 year period, while Palestinians left all at once in 1948. Both Sephardi Jews and Palestinians had high birth rates over the period, so it’s not really fair to compare raw numbers. If all the Arab countries had expelled their Jewish populations in 1948, then the total number of Jewish refugees would have been quite a bit lower. If Israel had waited until the early 70’s to expel it’s Palestinians, the number of expelled Palestinians would be quite a bit higher. So instead, it’s better to compare the number of current descendants of people who have been expelled.
But, you completely avoided my point. Expelling the Palestinians was wrong! We should do something to address that historical injustice. Waving your hand and talking about Iraq’s shitty conditions does nothing to address that fact.
Frankly, the fact that some brown people in Iraq decided to expel Jews in 1957 does not excuse the expulsion of other brown people in Ramle in 1948. By looking at Palestinian refugees solely as representatives of a religious group, you follow a twisted logic reminiscent of Hitler and Stalin.
Instead, focus on an individual. Some guy lived on a lemon Orchard in Lydda before the war, he was literally forced out of his home at gun point and dropped off in the middle of a desert. He’s lived as a refugee for the last 60 years. Imagine Shin Bet checks the guy out and certifies he isn’t a security threat. Is it so evil to allow him to apply for Israeli citizenship? Does such a possibility truly make your blood boil?
If it does, than you’re a hateful bastard without an ounce of empathy, and there’s no hope for you.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Re David Shor
Mr. Shor, it doesn’t matter a damn what I think or President Osama thinks or Secretary of State Clinton thinks, or President Sarkozy thinks, or Chancellor Merkel thinks. What matters is what the Government of Israel thinks and that government is not going to allow the resettlement of Fakestinians living in refugee camps in Israel. Not going to happen. Period, end of discussion. Calling me a Nazi or a hateful bastard will not have the slightest effect on what the Government of Israel does.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Re David Shor
By the way, in my position as a native born American, it is my belief that I am in no position to criticize the Israeli Government for ethnic cleansing, considering what the government of this country did to Native Americans. Now there is ethnic cleansing and genocide on a grand scale.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Re SLC
I don’t understand your reasoning. It sounds like you’re saying you would oppose ethnic cleansing if it hadn’t happened already in America. But since it has happened in America, you no longer oppose it anywhere?
Shouldn’t we conclude that since ethnic cleansing and genocide were wrong (and worth opposing) in America, that they’re also wrong (and worth opposing) in other countries today?
I guess you don’t think we can learn from history. On the other hand, maybe you’re just a believer in “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again” futility.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Mr. Abb1 likes the jihadist barbarians of Hamas because they share his penchant for f*cking goats.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I’m confused, Matt.
In the interview, Hillary makes it clear that there was an oral agreement: “there was an understanding that was entered into as far as we were told, orally.”
It was not passed on to the new administration in an official capacity. Nobody talked about it -although, from the quote, clearly they did- but it was understood, an oral agreement existed.
Evidence for this oral agreement, Hillary pointed out, is that “there is also a RECORD that President Bush contradicted even that oral agreement.”
So the Obama administration has a RECORD of a very real oral agreement, according to the Secretary of State.
The most telling quote of the interview was when Hillary said, “we were very close in 2000, and it is heartbreaking to see where we are today, and we can’t just standby and let time work its magic.”
A condemnation of the apathy and ineptitude of the previous administration, if ever I heard one. Whether they have possession of a “record” or not, the Obama administration will squeeze the possibility that it exists for all it is worth.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
SLC,
I don’t see why you put a partial resettlement of some Palestinians within Israel in “never going to happen” territory. My parents would have rated the likelihood of “Anwar Sadat addressing the Knesset in less than 5 years” as pretty low during the height of 73. Things in Israel tend to seem impossible right up until they happen. In the absence of strategic consequences to a partial refugee program, I don’t see why you possess such faith that it could never happen.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
# 32 Hector -
Abb’s alleged penchant is better than your love of fu*king your mother.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
David Shor: SLC doesn’t care about Israelis or Palestinians, just like abb1 just comes on so that he/she, SLC, Don Williams, Hector, and a few others can mix it up saying largely the same things over and over. He just gets off on saying a few maximalist Israeli hawk things repeatedly, especially ‘Hama Rules’ ’cause he thinks that was really cool.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I’m not friend of the Israeli settlers, and I think it’s ridiculous that 42 years after the 1867 war, Israel still can’t figure out what should be officially part of Israel. But I think it’s worth noting something that affects the attitudes of Israelis, especially the settlers. This isn’t talked about a lot, but if you think about it, it’s real real clear that any tie a settlement area is evacuated by Israel and given to the Palestinians, that area will become judenrein, free of Jews. Sounds incredible at first, but think about what happened when Israel left Gaza in 2005. Do you think any Jews would be allowed to hang out in Gaza, and be Jewish Palestinians? I think the settlers themselves are probably very clearly aware of this. And to them, the land they’re living on has religious significance. They don’t want to see the land become ethnically cleansed of Jews, judenrein. Now I happen to think that the way to deal with this negativity is not to simply build settlements and just live in a place. But I can see how the settlers themselves would resist relocation, pretty ferociously.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Israel’s only ally in the entire world is the US – without its support, financially and particularly in the UN, Israel’s pariah status would become intolerable.
If Netanyahu’s attempts at deception and his intransigence ends up as being perceived as a humiliation of Pres. Obama by the US MSM, it is an absolute certainty that he will get
100% support from it and Israel will be painted as the racist brutal state that it is. The American public has been shielded from Israel’s intolerable treatment of the Palestinians and if there was to be a confrontation, that shielding would stop – there would be an outrage and as a result there would be no resistance whatever to the US failing to veto a Security Council resolution directed to Israel living up to its previous resolutions.
Failing to abide by such a resolution would result in Israel facing sanctions – without a single ally in the world, it would find itself in grave difficulty.
Needless to say, with so many “ifs” this scenario is far from certain, but every day the necessary confrontation seems closer and closer. One can only hope for Netanyahu setting uo a “Go to Hell!!” situation for Pres. Obama.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Mr. Schor,
It’s true that the forcible expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 was a tragedy. But as of right now, where do you want the Jews to go? They are not going to sit down and sing Kum-Ba-Yah with the Palestinians exercising their right of return. If you want the State of Israel to go out of business, then that’s a legitimate argument but then you need to propose an alternative place for the Jews to move to. The US is not an option, because it will have to be a place with no anti-Semitic f*cktard savages like Mr. Hack, Mr. Abb1, Mr. Steve Sailer, Mr. Fareed, and all the other yahoos. Perhaps the Jews can expel the Pashtuns and take over Afghanistan. I’m not particularly fond of the Pashtuns, after the Taliban sh*t that they pulled, so I would not shed a tear if Israel were relocated to Afghanistan.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Shiva,
The Jews in the settlements just need to suck it up, and f*cking move out of the occupied territories. Don’t they see that by trying to overplay their hand, they are risking the whole future of Israel. Israel can’t survive within its Greater Israel boundaries because of the demographic problem. It can only maintain itself as a Jewish State if it withdraws to smaller, more demographically secure boundaries. The Jews in the settlement areas are enemies of public order and Israel needs to remove them if the state itself is going to survive.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Vindicator,
At least neither me nor Mr. Abb1, as far as I know, shares the sexual proclivities of the late and unlamented Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, who dragooned teenage boys into his harem.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
As I’ve said repeatedly, the only solution is a bi-national (single) state for both Palestinians and Jews.
And, yes, this means the Israeli government “going out of business”, to use SLC’s stupid phrase. Namely, the racist, imperialist, fascist, rogue, terrorist, Nazi-like, Zionist rulers of Israel need to be removed from power by any means necessary.
Preferably the means should be the UN reversing its decision to partition Palestine as it did in 1948, using as the legal basis the fact that it had no legal authority to do so at that time. This renders the existing Israeli and Palestinian governments null and void de jure. To render them irrelevant de facto would require the UN and the US and the international community installing a Protectorate Government over the territory of Palestine supported by military force if necessary, until such time as a Constitutional Convention consisting of moderate Palestinians and Jews can come up with a secular bi-national Constitution.
Then follow that up with free elections in which no existing members of either the Fatah, Hamas, or Israeli political parties will be allowed to stand, thus sidelining the fanatics on both sides.
As of dealing with the claims of returning Palestinians, as abb1 correctly says, it’s purely a matter of civil law. If you have a deed to an existing property, it’s yours. If the property now has enhanced social value, or has been destroyed, you get compensation.
As for returning Palestinians, if you have a record of your previous existence in Palestine, you get in. If not, you get to immigrate according to the policies of the new government. The same applies to Jews who want to immigrate from any other state to the new state.
None of this is rocket science as long as one isn’t tied to the notion that Israel has a right to be a racist, Zionist state with everybody but Jews being second-class citizens.
It’s completely irrelevant if Palestinians end up outnumbering Jews by some percentage. The IDF will be retained as the new state’s military force and obviously it’s highly unlikely most Palestinians will have any interest in trying to force all the Jews to leave given their relative populations and the existence of the IDF.
Eventually the two sides will learn to accept the situation since most people are too busy trying to survive as it is. Only those with vested interests in political or religious power will be causing any trouble and they will be in the minority. And not being allowed to achieve political status in the new government due to their past associations, they will have little capacity to cause trouble on their own.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Unrepentant smack addict and armed robber Richard Steven Hack shows up on schedule to spew his anti-Semitic filth all over Mr. Yglesias blog. I should like to know just why Yglesias tolerates yahoos like Mr. Hack.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Mr. Abb1 likes the jihadist barbarians of Hamas because they share his penchant for f*cking goats.
As a degenerate hipster or whatever, I was kinda wondering how Jesus/Aquinas would accuse someone of goat fucking, and now I know. Thanks!
June 7th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
DMonteith,
I will stop accusing Mr. Abb1 of bestiality when he stops calling for Israel to be a binational secular state.
June 7th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Hector,
I believe that we should grant a right of return to Palestinians whose can show their ancestors lived in pre-67 Israel. They would be treated just like any jew who came in from New York.
That leaves about a million potential immigrants, most of whom wouldn’t take Israel up on the offer(Polling on the question has suggested that only around 7% or so would choose to move). So we’re talking about around 100,000 Palestinians, many of whom would be Christian. This wouldn’t really do anything to threaten the Jewish character of Israel.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:58 am
I will stop accusing Mr. Abb1 of bestiality when he stops calling for Israel to be a binational secular state.
Hey man, you’re the “what would Jesus do?” expert, so it’s good to know that yelling “You goat fucker!” is where he’s coming from on this, I guess.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:07 am
David Shor, 27:
window for the kind of program you are talking about passed a very very long time ago.
Says who? You? And just who the fuck are you to make statements like these?
So, if you rob someone and kick them out of their homes you just need to wait out for some imaginary “window” you invented to pass and then you own their stuff fair and square, is that it?
No Sir, it doesn’t work like that; why don’t you ask those who have been living in refugees camps for 60 years if the window has passed or hasn’t passed?
And I’ll also tell you who you are: you’re a lowlife concern troll and a racist swine. I’ve seen it before: “ah! oh! a terrible injustice has been done, but it now too late and nothing can be worked out unfortunately, the window has passed, how terrible.” No, it has not passed and it never will; don’t fool yourself, and don’t try to fool the others.
June 8th, 2009 at 3:11 am
Yes, and consider this: Zionists extend their grievances into a 2000-year period and act in the name of victims who often have nothing to do with them; for example, how come you, a Moroccan Jew, should benefit from the Nazi holocaust in Europe? Or what do people like Avigdor Lieberman have to do with the ancient Hebrews? Absolutely nothing.
And here you have real people who are direct victims of an ethnic cleansing and their direct first/second generation descendants – as well as real perpetrators of that ethnic cleansing and people who have directly benefited from it (such as yourself) – and in this case the window is already closed somehow? Should be looking forward not backwards, uh?
There can be no peace without justice, mister; not for you, not for me, not for anybody.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:52 am
abb1,
Kicking out Israelis from their homes now would also be an injustice. Just as it was wrong to tell Palestinians “This land was ours 2000 years ago, so get the fuck out”, it’s wrong to say “This land was ours 60 years ago, so scram”.
That’s what “the window has passed” means: That attempting to redress past injustices in such a matter would make things worse.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:06 am
That’s what “the window has passed” means: That attempting to redress past injustices in such a matter would make things worse.
ITYM 42 years in the past, and the issue has been addressed in the meantime. Saying “the window has passed” is what “playing out the clock” means.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:42 am
No, that’s not true, David. This is not a past injustice, this is a current one.
Leaving along the fact that I haven’t suggested to kick anyone from their home, consider this: what happened 60 years ago happened in the modern world, post-WWII world, under the modern international law. Mover, it’s still happening. That’s completely different from something that ended 2000 years ago, or even 100 years ago.
Just a few weeks ago a guy was extradited to Germany from the US to face a trial for something he did 60+ years ago; and this is how it works now. There is no statute of limitations on these crimes, you can’t kick someone out of their home, hold on for a few years and declare it a done deal. No, in the end you will have to pay or move out. Or, most likely, both.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:57 am
DMonteith,
Our Lord used stronger language than ‘goat f*cker’ for his enemies, you know. “Ye brood of vipers” comes to mind.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:59 am
David Shor,
Well, if it would be compatible with a Jewish state then I’m all for letting a controlled number of Palestinians back. However you’re wasting your time to talking to pig-f*cker barbarians like Mr. Abb1.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Our Lord used stronger language than ‘goat f*cker’ for his enemies, you know. “Ye brood of vipers” comes to mind.
Hm. Given this, I’m gonna have to entertain the possibility that “turn the other cheek” is referring to a different kind of cheek than I thought it was. Who knew?
Also, good to know that “love thy neighbor” applies even when your neighbor is a goat. These kinds of insights into the Christian mythology are invaluable, so, thanks again!
June 8th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I will stop accusing Mr. Abb1 of bestiality when he stops calling for Israel to be a binational secular state.
Multiethnic secular states where people of all backgrounds are equal under the law are the only proven solution to the kind of violent ethnic and religious conflicts that have plagued the Middle East for decades (or centuries, depending on your point of view). Considering the source, maybe this is a futile question, but do you have any reasoned arguments for why calling for one is some kind of horrible crime?
Drop the group designations for a minute and focus on the human beings. What rights does an individual of Jewish ancestry have? What rights does an individual of Arab ancestry have? If your answers are different, what justifies the difference?
Regardless of what Mr. Hack’s background may or may not be (and it’s not like contributors to this thread are particularly credible in their accusations), he is generally correct to say this (with the reservation that it may impliedly mischaracterize Zionism):
None of this is rocket science as long as one isn’t tied to the notion that Israel has a right to be a racist, Zionist state with everybody but Jews being second-class citizens.
How can any state have such a right?
June 8th, 2009 at 11:28 am
with the reservation that it may impliedly mischaracterize Zionism
I can’t speak for Hack, but if you think you can suggest some definition of actually existing (not some fantazy) Zionism that is different from “militant ethnocentric racist movement, very similar to Nazism” – I would like to hear it.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Re chris
Excuse me Mr. chris, Mr. Hack has admitted on this blog that he is a convicted bank robber, that he walked into a bank in San Francisco, pulled a gun, lined up the tellers and told them to empty their cash drawers on pain of termination with extreme prejudice. He has further admitted that he was captured, tried, and sentenced to 9 years in the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Not only does he admit all of the preceding, he is proud of it and has shown no remorse for his crime. Since his release, he has, on this blog, advocated the assassination of police officers and has threatened to shove fascist talk show host Michael Savage (nee Weiner) off a curb into traffic.
So don’t come on here and accuse other commentors of lying about Mr. Hacks’ criminal record. Their comments are based on Mr. Hacks’ own admissions.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hey, what’s robbing a bank compared to founding a bank? Or a militant racist country, for that matter.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
SLC,
Precisely. I would add that Mr. Hack appears to have done the bank robbery in part to feed his smack habbit, and in part to fulfil his Nihilist beliefs. I’m not sure just why Chris feels the need to give so much credence to the words of a convicted smack addicted Nihilist armed robber, but I do know that it says something rather sad about the state of moral discouse in contemporary late-capitalist America, when a Nihilist smack addict is treated as some kind of moral authority. I would add that Mr. Hack has gone on record saying that faithful Jews and Christians should be killed in order to expedite his Trans-Humanist utopia. Mr. Hack has also called Christians ‘chimpanzees’.
Re: Drop the group designations for a minute and focus on the human beings. What rights does an individual of Jewish ancestry have? What rights does an individual of Arab ancestry have? If your answers are different, what justifies the difference
Chris,
Jews have a right to a Jewish State. Just as Muslims have the right to a Muslim State, Socialists to a Socialist State, and Christians to a Christian State. It’s about religion and values, not race. Faithful Jews should have the right to a state where they can keep Mr. Yglesias from eating pigs, and Mr. Abb1 from f*cking pigs, if they so choose.
Now of course the problem is that the Jews and Arabs want the same territory. Which is why I support Two States for Two Peoples.
The Maccabean martyrs died to maintain the purity of their faith and to keep from being forced to eat pork. Yet Mr. Yglesias has so little sense of obligation to the honor of his bloodline, that he chatters away on this blog about whether pork chops taste better with arugula salad or grilled artichokes. This annoys me, and I think that believeing Jews have every right to have a state where cosmopolite hipsters like Yglesias are told that the integrity of the Jewish Faith is more important than their taste for soy-and-balsamic-glazed pork chops (I am a Christian btw).
June 8th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Re abb1
Hey, what’s robbing a bank compared to founding a bank? Or a militant racist country, for that matter.
Further proof, if such was needed, that Mr. abb1 is a fucking asshole of the first order. I suspect that if Mr. abb1 had been on the wrong end of Mr. Hacks’ gun, he wouldn’t be posting such stupid comments.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Actually, it was Bertolt Brecht who said it, so take it up with him, Einstein.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
The Maccabean martyrs died to maintain the purity of their faith and to keep from being forced to eat pork. Yet Mr. Yglesias has so little sense of obligation to the honor of his bloodline, that he chatters away on this blog about whether pork chops taste better with arugula salad or grilled artichokes.
Yeah, and several of my ancestors fought for the right to keep slaves. They were, of course, justified because, according to the Bible, Ham saw his dad Noah’s junk and (stay with me here) Noah inexplicably cursed the wrong dude in retaliation, so enslaving Africans is a-ok. Am I obligated to honor my bloodline by taking up this cause? Or am I already too hipster-y to be saved, so I might as well just wallow in more sin and oppose slavery too?
This stuff is very complicated! It’s so nice to have a natural lawyer like you around to confer with on these matters.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Oh, he’s just joking. Nobody can be that stupid – and be able to use a computer.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
“And if the Israeli government doesn’t have the willingness—or the political will—to so much as freeze expansion, then there’s no way they’ll be able to do the dismantling. And, similarly, if there are arguments which hold that freezing expansion is wrong or impossible on the merits, then those same arguments imply that the settlements can never go.”
Well, I’m glad to see that Yglesias is finally getting around to addressing the question of what, exactly, it is about increasing settlements that might make peace, or negotiations towards peace, impossible, as opposed to just taking it as obvious or a given as he has consistently done before this.
However his logic on this topic remains impeccably muddled.
Point 1. If the Israelis can’t freeze, how can they withdraw? You know, what the Israeli government and people might be willing to do for a comprehensive peace treaty, and what they are willing to do for the right simply to start negotiations — essentially, in other words, for nothing — aren’t remotely the same thing. (And please don’t tell me that they got the quid pro quo they were supposed to, viz., and end to attacks on Israeli civilians. Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade (Fatah) only gave that up after the wall and the IDF made it impossible.)
Point 2. Not true for more or less the same reason. What you give up for nothing and what you give up for true value in exchange aren’t the same thing. There might be good reasons for settlement from the Israeli perspective — settling historic Judea, say, or improving their negotiating position — which nevertheless would be much less significant to them than achieving a comprehensive peace with the Arabs.
So really the logic of this argument both ways is based on a fantastic assumption about Israeli decision-making, namely, that it doesn’t involve all the usual compromises and trade-offs that everyone else’s does.
But, you know, I’m glad to see it acknowledged that there is something that needs to be affirmatively argued for here. Now, as Dr. Spielvogel says, vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?
June 8th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Hector: “I would add that Mr. Hack appears to have done the bank robbery in part to feed his smack habbit…”
For the record – and it is in the Federal pre-sentencing investigation report – I have zero drug habits – unless you count Hagen-Daaz ice cream and pizza as “drugs”. It’s also in my supervised release court order which specifically exempts me from drug counseling – although not mental health counseling! LOL!
Hector on the other hand is clearly hallucinating on some sort of chemical imbalance, no doubt induced by religious fervor equivalent to Torquemada given his political beliefs.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Re Richard Steven Hack
For the record – and it is in the Federal pre-sentencing investigation report – I have zero drug habits – unless you count Hagen-Daaz ice cream and pizza as “drugs”
Pizza and Hagen-Daz ice cream. No wonder Mr. Hack is a fat slob.