BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 12:05 PM

"I am saying that all opinions - which is what is being offered here - are to be judged by the individual who offers them '

1. I was talking about your ignoring the FACTS presented.

2. Your statement means that the rest of us can ignore all posts by you and GenocideGreg, the terror of all small rodents.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 12:04 PM

Oh, and by the way, Bruce, Linker [ Yopur 09 Apr 14 - 09:35 AM post] is saying that the Isreali Gov't gang is being just as big dickheads, & posibly bigger, as the Palestinians. Do you actually agree with that?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 12:01 PM

"Are you saying that the only acceptable facts to you are those that are presented by those you agree with?"
I am saying that all opinions - which is what is being offered here - are to be judged by the individual who offers them
In this this case a right-wing, head-banging Tea party-goer.
These guys come up with a defence before they've committed an atrocity - as do you
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:48 AM

Greggie boy,

Still looking for the duct tape, for your hamsters?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:45 AM

So, Greg, You are STILL supporting genocide, as well as your racism??

Bullshit from BullhitBruce. Imagine my surprise.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:10 AM

Why wouldn't he support the Israeli regime - that's where his politics are?


Are you saying that the only acceptable facts to you are those that are presented by those you agree with? SOME of us look at ALL the presented facts, and try to decide what is the truth based on ALL available information rather than just on what we agree with.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 10:56 AM

When Billy does it that gets thousands of posts on Mudcat, when Johnny does it that gets none. The reason for that is self evident.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 10:53 AM

from the Hamas Charter

"[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: "Allah is the all-powerful, but most people are not aware.""


"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who can presume to speak for all Islamic generations to the Day of Resurrection?

This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Sharia (law), and the same goes for all lands conquered by Muslims by force, during the times of (Islamic) conquests, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection.

It happened like this: When the leaders of the Islamic armies conquered Syria and Iraq, they sent to the Caliph of the Muslims, Umar bin-el-Khatab, asking for his advice concerning the conquered land - whether they should divide it among the soldiers, or leave it for its owners, or what? After consultations and discussions between the Caliph of the Muslims, Omar bin-el-Khatab and companions of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, it was decided that the land should be left with its owners who could benefit by its fruit, but the control of the land and the land itself ought to be endowed as a Waqf [in perpetuity] for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection. The ownership of the land by its owners is only one of usufruct, and this Waqf will endure as long as Heaven and earth last. Any demarche in violation of this law of Islam, with regard to Palestine , is baseless and reflects on its perpetrators."

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 10:44 AM

No, just those that apply one standard to Israel and another to the Paletinians.


So, you refuse to discuss any fact that is supported by those you disagree with?


If ++I++ were to do that, you would have said absolutely nothing on this entire thread….


Gee, maybe that IS the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 10:41 AM

"And, as I have come to expect from you, you attack the PERSON making statements of fact rather than address the FACTS that are presented."
No facts - just defensive opinions from an ultra-right pro-Israeli journalist who has a half-century reputation for same
Why wouldn't he support the Israeli regime - that's where his politics are?
"I'll keep you and Jimmy in the "Pro-Genocide" group."
And virtually everybody else on this forum, I take it?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 10:14 AM

So, Greg,

You are STILL supporting genocide, as well as your racism??


"With this we come to the main reason I believe that the Palestinians do not deserve any sympathy, let alone the astonishing degree of it they do receive (and not least from many of my fellow Jews). It is that ever since the day of Israel's birth in 1948, they have never ceased declaring that their goal is to wipe it off the map. In all other contexts, this would be called by its rightful name of genocide and condemned by all decent people. Yet—here we go topsy-turvy again—for any and every step Israel takes to defend itself against so shamelessly evil an intent, it is the Israelis who are obsessively condemned at the U.N. and by the increasingly strident propagators of what calls itself "anti-Zionism" but is also increasingly indistinguishable from anti-Semitism."

Hamas STILL hard the DESTRUCTION of Israel in it's policies.


I'll keep you and Jimmy in the "Pro-Genocide" group.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 10:02 AM

Gee, Bruce, Linker [ 09 Apr 14 - 09:35 AM ] is saying that the Isreali Gov't gang is being just as big dickheads, & posibly bigger, as the Palestinians. Do you actually agree with that?

But this hardly qualifies as unique, given that dozens of other ethnic groups...

Didn't your mom ever explain to you that just becuse Johnny was doing something that didn't make it OK for you to do it?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 09:45 AM

And, as I have come to expect from you, you attack the PERSON making statements of fact rather than address the FACTS that are presented.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 09:35 AM

And what part of this do you object to???


"Besides its strong coverage of cultural issues, it provided a strong voice for the anti-Stalinist left. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, originally a mainstream liberal Democrat. He and his magazine moved to the right in the 1970s and 1980s.[1] Benjamin Balint describes it as the "Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right".[2] Historian Richard Pells says that "no other journal of the past half century has been so consistently influential, or so central to the major debates that have transformed the political and intellectual life of the United States."[3]"


I guess the idea of DEBATE, where BOTH sides are present, is foreign to your way of thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 09:31 AM

So, Jim?

YOU have been quoting and supporting people who have called for the destruction of an entire people- but I guess genocide is OK if it is by YOUR friends.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 09:17 AM

You certainly pick your allies Brucie
Jim Carroll

Norman Podhoretz – "is an American neoconservative pundit and writer for Commentary"

Vietnam
In an editorial to the Wall Street Journal on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Podhoretz contends that the retreat from Iraq should not be similar to the retreat from Vietnam. He argues that when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, it sacrificed its national honor.[20]
In 1982, James Fallows wrote a review of Podhoretz's book, Why We Were in Vietnam, for the New York Times, in which he accuses Podhoretz of "changing his views" and "self-righteousness" on the subject of Vietnam, noting that in 1971 Podhoretz wrote that he would "prefer just such an American defeat to a 'Vietnamization' of the war."[21]
A larger quote from Why We Were in Vietnam which was included in the review is as follows:
"As one who has never believed that anything good would ever come for us or for the world from an unambiguous American defeat, I now find myself – and here is the main source of my own embarrassment in writing about Vietnam – unhappily moving to the side of those who would prefer just such an American defeat to a 'Vietnamization' of the war which calls for the indefinite and unlimited bombardment by American pilots in American planes of every country in that already devastated region."

George W. Bush
Podhoretz has praised Bush, saying "George W. Bush (is) a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it." He goes on to claim that Bush has been "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other [president] in living memory."[15][19]

Sarah Palin
In a Wall Street Journal editorial titled "In Defense of Sarah Palin," Podhoretz wrote, "I hereby declare that I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama.[24]

Commentary Magazine
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. Besides its strong coverage of cultural issues, it provided a strong voice for the anti-Stalinist left. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, originally a mainstream liberal Democrat. He and his magazine moved to the right in the 1970s and 1980s.[1] Benjamin Balint describes it as the "Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right".[2] Historian Richard Pells says that "no other journal of the past half century has been so consistently influential, or so central to the major debates that have transformed the political and intellectual life of the United States."[3]

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 07:53 AM

More from above:

"As for the monumental injustice supposedly done to the Palestinians, it consists largely of losing territory in the war they themselves provoked in 1967, and the refusal of their demand that every inch of it be returned to them by the Israeli victors in that war. Such demands have always been known and universally denounced as revanchism or irredentism, most recently over the Russian seizure of Crimea. But where Israel is concerned, everything goes topsy-turvy, so that Palestinian irredentism is universally supported."

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 07:48 AM

"The accompanying and equally great injustice allegedly suffered by the Palestinians is that they have been denied a state of their own. But this hardly qualifies as unique, given that dozens of other ethnic groups—the Kurds being the most prominent—are in the same boat.

In any event, this "injustice" is also self-inflicted, since three times in the past 15 years the Palestinians have refused offers of a state on most of the territory taken by Israel in 1967 and with Jerusalem as its capital. They have justified these refusals by one pretext or another, but as anyone willing to look can see, what they truly want is not a state of their own living side by side with Israel but a state that replaces Israel altogether.

With this we come to the main reason I believe that the Palestinians do not deserve any sympathy, let alone the astonishing degree of it they do receive (and not least from many of my fellow Jews). It is that ever since the day of Israel's birth in 1948, they have never ceased declaring that their goal is to wipe it off the map. In all other contexts, this would be called by its rightful name of genocide and condemned by all decent people. Yet—here we go topsy-turvy again—for any and every step Israel takes to defend itself against so shamelessly evil an intent, it is the Israelis who are obsessively condemned at the U.N. and by the increasingly strident propagators of what calls itself "anti-Zionism" but is also increasingly indistinguishable from anti-Semitism.

Nor, alas, is it only the leaders of the Palestinians who harbor this evil intent. As revealed by poll after poll, as well as by the elections that led the way for Hamas to take power in Gaza, a decisive majority of the Palestinian people does so as well. No doubt this is the fruit of relentless indoctrination from above, but the damage has been done, and the end result is what it is.

Indeed, the best that can be said of both Palestinian leaders and led is that many of them no longer imagine—as did Gamal Abdel Nasser, the former president of Egypt—that they have the power to drive the Jews of Israel into the sea. Therefore they are now willing to give up pursuing the goal of genocide and to settle for the more modest objective of politicide—that is, to get rid of the Jewish state by transforming it, through various "peaceful" means like the "right of return," into a state with a Palestinian majority."

from
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304640104579487444112949138?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 07:34 AM

Ah: gotcha, Jim. Wilfred Pickles was someone else, from my far-off youth; Northern comic & wartime newsreader, hosted that 'Have A Go' programme [dire schoolboy joke told me by my Cousin Martin at the time: 'Have you heard about Wilfred Pickles terrible accident? Fell out of bed having a go!' LoL]. Honestly hadn't been aware of what old Fatso MP has been saying about Islam. He is certainly not 'my man' in any sense; just a sizeable hole-in-the-air to me.

I don't deny that Farage comes across as somewhat xenophobic in his desire for UK Independence. Goes with the territory, pretty obviously. But not a million miles from the views of many, inc utap mine, in that I have been, not Eurosceptic [an evasive get-out of a term IMO!], but Europhobic right from the get-go. Farage a very different sort of organism from Griffin, surely?, & hardly to be bracketed with him.

But there is some force to the objection raised just above that this a a thread about the mid-East, & all this EU stuff may be a drift too far. Shall we leave this theme now, don't you think?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 05:59 AM

Israelis blame Jews for continuing disruption of peace talks - official
Jim Carroll

From this morning's Independent
MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS: US SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY FACES 'ANTI-SEMITIC' CLAIMS FOR BLAMING FAILING OF TALKS ON ISRAEL
BEN LYNFIELD JERUSALEM WEDNESDAY 09 APRIL 2014
Stung by comments from US Secretary of State John Kerry that placed most of the blame for the deterioration in the Middle East peace process on Israel, Israeli leaders dismissed them as biased at best, and anti-Semitic at worst.
Insisting that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was the one responsible for the current impasse, deputy foreign minister Zeev Elkin told state-run Israel Radio: "Whoever thought there was a connection between reality and the claims of the international community can be disappointed".
"We have experience that this connection doesn't always exist and that political correctness causes the blame to be apportioned equally or worse."
In the view of Mr Elkin, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, those who have "eyes to see and know the details" understand that Mr Abbas is to blame and was looking for a way to "escape" negotiations that he never wanted.
David Rotem, another Israeli politician, told The Independent that being blamed by Mr Kerry was to be expected. "The Jews are always found guilty of all the problems in the world," he said. "Israel is not guilty of anything."
Mr Rotem added that he was concerned that Mr Kerry's remarks would foreshadow American pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians to overcome the impasse.
Last week the peace process suddenly disintegrated with Mr Abbas's application to join 15 UN treaties and conventions as a state party – a step viewed by Israel as incompatible with the talks.
Senior Palestinians said the move was taken in response to Israel's failure to release a final batch of Palestinian prisoners as part of releases it committed to before negotiations resumed in July.
Mr Kerry, making an appearance before senators on Tuesday, traced the crisis to Israel's failure to release the prisoners.
"The prisoners were not released by Israel on the day they were supposed to be released and then another day passed and another day and then 700 [settlement] units were approved in Jerusalem and then poof – that was sort of the moment," he said.
He also termed Mr Abbas's subsequent decision to apply to join international organisations "unhelpful".
The State Department later tried to soften the impression that Mr Kerry was blaming Israel mostly, with spokeswoman Jen Psaki stressing that both sides had taken unhelpful steps.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 05:34 AM

A passionate supporter of Palestinian rights might be wholly opposed to the EU,

Yes. Tony Benn for example.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 03:29 AM

Sorry Mike - missed a bit - I was referring to Eric Pickles statement on Muslim clerics - he figures largely (in every sense) in the present government, doesn't he?
I've watched Farrago several times and I have gained an impression, that his policy - where he has one, on both immigration and the E.U., are interlinked, and are Xenophobically presented.
His sole contribution to life today appears to be to make the lives of Paul Merton and Ian Hislop a little easier - he would be in line for a Grammy if 'Spitting Image' were still going - 'to absent friends'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 07:15 PM

There seem to be two heated arguments going on in the same thread. A bit confusing. After all the dividing lines on the two issues are liable to be completely at odds. A passionate supporter of Palestinian rights might be wholly opposed to the EU, or enthusiastically in favour of it.

Wouldn't a brief ceasefire while things got redeployed into separate threads make sense?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 01:37 PM

What 'own man', Jim? No idea whom you are refg to. Depends what the 'single issue' is. I should be much in favour of anything that got us out of this fatuous enslavement to that organisation run exclusively in their own interests by our traditional enemies, the Frogs & the Krauts, whose only point of agreement that I can see is a shared hatred of us. God knows how we ever got caught up with that lot. That loony Heath, wasn't it? Caught us up in a posture to be patronised and belittled by that ungratefullest little shit in the history of mankind, de Gaulle. So can see perhaps some remote hope in Farage's campaign; but whether worth bothering to vote, esp at my age when I'm unlikely to be personally involved in anything for much longer & have never given too much thought to posterity who will doubtless be competent to mind their own affairs...

Still can't see any point in bracketing two people with pretty well no policy overlaps just because they are on broadly the same end of the left-right continuum; but political analysis has never been much of a thing of mine.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 01:17 PM

"I don't read that sort of press."
It's not a particularly 'press' saying as far as I recall
I think its pretty generally applied to anti gays and Muslim extremists with equal vehemence (your own man, Wilfred (think that's his name - could be wrong) used it to describe the latter nor so long ago.
I'm afraid I can't see a great deal of difference between Griffin and 'Farrago' - jackels out of the same game preserve as far as I'm concerned
Can't imagine why someone should vote for a single-policy politician anyway
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 12:35 PM

Oh! Right; thank you, Jim. Not a phrase I've come across in that particular usage; I suppose becoz I don't read that sort of press.

Seems to me a phrase quite well adapted for Griffin, but can't see where it fits that other fella whatevs. But don't propose to get het up about the question, which is, at best, of slightly less than marginal interest to me.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 12:10 PM

"just name a politician whom you would call a "love-merchant", eh?"
Sorry - miss your point entirely - "hate merchant" is, as far as I am aware, a pretty common phrase to describe racists, sectarians and bigots - not of my making whatever - would claim to be so imaginative
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 12:03 PM

Gee, Bruce, Linker is saying that the Isreali Gov't gang is being just as big dickheads, & posibly bigger, as the Palestinians.

Do you actually agree with that?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 12:01 PM

BTW ~~ re both being "hate-merchants": just name a politician whom you would call a "love-merchant", eh? Talk about moronic phrase-making...

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 11:53 AM

Full of admiration, Jim, at your astonishing perspicacity in extrapolating my voting intentions, when I don't even know myself what they might be when the election comes -- or even if I shall still be around to exercise them if I do decide: 82 in a month's time, you know.

Still ~~ play your games, my dear!

Best
~M~

Still think it an idiocy to equate those two just coz they're both of the right-ish tendency. If you'd been around then, I suppose you wouldn't have been able to tell Ulyanov from Bronstein, either!

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 10:45 AM

Post away and ignore what's happening - that seems to be the way of your world
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 09:35 AM

Sorry, there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict The harsh and ugly truth is that some conflicts really are intractable

By Damon Linker | 6:08am ET

So John Kerry's frantic drive to settle the nearly seven-decade-long clash between the Israelis and Palestinians has come to nothing. Everyone who cares about Israeli security and the suffering of the Palestinians wished him well in his efforts, just as everyone knowledgeable about the conflict understood that those efforts would fail.

And yet surprisingly few on either side have drawn the proper conclusion — which is that, for now at least, there simply is no solution to the conflict.

It's easy enough to see why we're so reluctant to accept this harsh and ugly truth.

As inveterate optimists, Americans have a hard time accepting tragedy. We like to believe that any problem can be fixed with enough gumption and good intentions. We're even more inclined to believe it in the case of Israel and the Palestinians because our steadfast support of Israel over the decades has deeply implicated us in the intricate web of injustices that plague the region.

But our desire to find a way out of the impasse doesn't mean that one exists. Not every puzzle has a solution. Not every conflict can be resolved.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had an intractable quality from the beginning: Two peoples with competing, exclusivist claims to one small parcel of land. That's one important reason why every attempt to broker a lasting peace agreement over the past 66 years has fallen to pieces in the end — because the end is unreachable.

For one thing, each group insists on making Jerusalem its capital city and claims to be unwilling to accept anything short of that. Yes, it's at least possible that this tension could be finessed by some kind of dual-sovereignty agreement. But there's no finessing this: The Israeli government demands that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the historic homeland of the Jewish people (meaning it will not be permitted to become a binational state), while the Palestinians insist on a "right of return" to land within Israeli territory, which would instantly transform it into a binational state — and one in which Jews make up a minority of the population.

That, my friends, is the very definition of an intractable conflict.

The only way out of such a conflict is for the incentives, priorities, and preferences of the parties to change, making accommodation more likely. But the unfortunate fact is that in recent years the parties have, if anything, been moving even further apart.

The Israeli side feels it got badly burned by the breakdown of negotiations at the Taba Summit in January 2001, and then by the Second Intifada that began soon afterward, unleashing deadly waves of suicide bombings throughout the country. Those bombings stopped not because of negotiations, but because the border fence constructed by the Israeli government greatly increased the difficulty of launching terrorist attacks inside of Israel from the occupied territories. The lesson Israel learned from this experience is that security can only be won through decisive unilateral action.

Unilateral action taught the Israelis a different and even bleaker lesson in Gaza. Dismantle settlements, pull back from occupation, and allow Palestinians to decide their own fate — and they will immediately elect an organization (Hamas) dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. Israel now lives with a hostile power on its southern border that periodically rains down missiles on Israeli towns.

Add to that the anti-Israel Hezbollah faction (and Iranian proxy) in Lebanon to the north; the Syrian civil war, which pits the staunchly antagonistic government of Bashar al-Assad against even more radical Islamists, to the northeast; an unstable and intermittently hostile Egypt to the southwest; and of course the persistent threat of a nuclear Iran a thousand miles to the east — and one can begin to understand why Israel feels more surrounded and vulnerable than ever. The last thing it will do in such circumstances is undertake another experiment in withdrawal from the modest buffer zone of the West Bank on its militarily vulnerable eastern flank.

Attitudes on the Palestinian side have grown similarly intransigent. After having their hopes raised and dashed so many times, after decades of military occupation and ever-expanding settlement building on land that will ostensibly be part of any independent state, it's no wonder that popular support for a two-state solution is waning among the Palestinian people.

Then there's the fact that recent events seem to have shown the Palestinians that time is on their side. As the years have gone by without a peace deal and the population of the West Bank has increased, the world's outrage at the Israeli occupation and disenfranchisement of the Palestinians has only grown. In the past few years, this indignation has inspired the U.N. and other international bodies to begin recognizing, over strenuous Israeli (and American) objections, occupied Palestine as an independent state. This is an effort that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has now begun to pursue more actively than ever.

Not that such recognition will give many additional rights to the people living in the occupied West Bank. But that, in fact, is the point: To demonstrate to worldwide public opinion that the Palestinians have been consigned by the Israelis to live out their days in impoverished Bantustans where they are denied rudimentary rights to self-determination. The Palestinians hope that a growing chorus of global condemnation will eventually drive Israel either to pull back from the West Bank, thereby allowing the establishment of a fully independent Palestinian state, or to grant full political rights within Israel to the Palestinian people — a move that would turn Israel into a binational state.

Neither has any chance of happening.

Which means that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a condition that the ancient Greek philosophers would have described with the term "aporia" — meaning "to be at a loss" or "impassable." There is no peace process. No way forward. This might change down the road. But for now it is our lamentable but unsurpassable reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 09:23 AM

""They are pressing and saying, 'No peace without the Jewish state,'" he said, though not spelling out who is applying the pressure. "There is no way. We will not accept.""
More or less what the Israelis have been saying and doing right from the beginning
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 08:22 AM

Abbas: No recognition of Israel as Jewish state
Associated Press By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH
March 7, 2014 2:04 PM

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said there is "no way" he will recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept a Palestinian capital in just a portion of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, rebuffing what Palestinians fear will be key elements of a U.S. peace proposal.

Abbas' comments signaled that the gaps between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remain wide after seven months of mediation efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Abbas, whose remarks were published Friday by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, said he withstood international pressure in the past, when he sought U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine over Washington's objections.

Speaking to youth activists of his Fatah party, he suggested he would stand firm again, particularly over the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

"They are pressing and saying, 'No peace without the Jewish state,'" he said, though not spelling out who is applying the pressure. "There is no way. We will not accept."

Netanyahu gave interviews to Israeli TV stations, excerpts of which were broadcast Friday night.

"I am ready to proceed, I am ready to reach the end of the conflict, but it must be the end of the conflict," Netanyahu told Channel 10 TV. "We won't allow the establishment of a Palestinian state so that it will continue the conflict, so it needs to recognize the state of the Jews just like they are demanding from us that we recognize the state of the Palestinians."

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 08:21 AM

No I can't they are both hate merchants - Farage being slightly less articulate than Griffin
But thank you for an insight into your voting intentions
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 08:18 AM

small hope, indeed.


Meanwhile, reports Israel National News, the Palestinian Authority is again trying "unification" with terror group Hamas. As a sign of Fatah's goodwill, Saeb Erekat, the PA's top negotiator and a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on Hamas to implement all previous agreements with Fatah in order to "fight together against Israel."
"I hereby declare, in the name of President Mahmoud Abbas and the directorate of Fatah, that Hamas is a Palestinian movement, and is not and never was a terror group," Erekat added.
That statement by Erekat is sure to raise the ire of Israel. Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, has been implicated in dozens of terror attacks against Israelis. It is considered a terror group by America and numerous other countries.
Hamas's own charter declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors." The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Apr 14 - 07:59 AM

Slow burn:-   If Jim really can't distinguish between Farage & Griffin, but brackets them together as above [7 apr, 0929 am], then he must be even more of a political booby than I had previously thought: which, believe me is saying something!.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 12:03 PM

Sorry - that should read "they are if you choose not to count them"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 11:46 AM

"but that doesn't mean that all such hands are eq"
They are only if you choose to count them
I would suggest that Israeli fanaticism, backed by nuclear weapons is as threatening as it gets
I remember with a bit of a chill one of the last interviews on 'The Jews' series, when the settler described how far he believed the the borders of Israel should extend - god (wheover's) help us all.
You are still herding people - fanatics and Muslims together.
And you are refusing to acknowledge any form of bigotry and hatred, other than Muslim extremism.
We're really not getting anywhere until you stop fielding for one side - and lip-service condemnation doesn't hack it anymore - just had a wonderfully laughable example of that from Keith's 'Homs Horror' defence.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 10:57 AM

...ually soiled. {Not sure what happened there}. YMMV, but Islamic ones seem to me by a good distance the most so.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 10:55 AM

[MGM]: "ISLAM IS NOT, in any sense whatever, "A RACE"
[JC]: All male Pakistanis with cultural implants are -'
.,,.

"[M]: and do you really think that "Pakistanis" is entirely synonymous with "Islam"?"
[J]: Are you deliberately misunderstanding me?

.,,.
Where do you find this 'deliberate misunderstanding' of mine in this exchange?
.,,.
"no particular group comes away from that one with clean hands"
.,,.
Agreed -- but that doesn't mean that all such hands are eq

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 10:37 AM

" and do you really think that "Pakistanis" is entirely synonymous with "Islam"?"
Are you deliberately misunderstanding me?
No I do not - I think anybody who holds or supports such views is a racist - if the cap fits
I also believe that there is no difference in the outcome of both - bloody, violent, hate inspred violence and persecution.
"None of your bloody biznis whom I choose to vote for. Don't be so impertinent, Jim!"
I seem to remember your making an effort to find out what my politics were - or did I imagine that one?
I have never criticised "religion" other than to describe it as a superstition, which I believe it to be. I criticise the way religion is used to generate hate and violence, mainly by churches - no particular group comes away from that one with clean hands.
Setting a time limit and using a measuring stick on those abuses just excuses them, which it appears you are doing constantly.
The lady who died for want of an operation last year because "this is a Catholic country" is just as dead as the victims of a fanatic's suicide bomb - and the fact that Ireland has been a "Catholic country" for a very long time makes a body-count very difficult.
And please don't try hiding behind the wives of dead soldiers - there are plenty of victims on both sides - including those who were injured by rioters after the Woolwich incident, and the Asian man who was kicked to death and then burned because he took photographs of kids terrorising his family, in order to give them to the police,, or the many thousands of victims of Paki-bashing.... or any of the long-term victims of racial and sectarian abuse - there really isn't any high-ground in all this.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 09:48 AM

... and do you really think that "Pakistanis" is entirely synonymous with "Islam"? If not, then, quite apart from the 'cultural implant' asseveration which has caused you so much confusion over so long a period, what precisely is your point?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 09:39 AM

None of your bloody biznis whom I choose to vote for. Don't be so impertinent, Jim!

This fatuity of denouncing anyone for being more critical of one religion than others really does expose your arguments in all their relativist idiocy. It's not 'religious bigotry' to regard the teaching of one particular religion as being more dangerous than that of others. Ask Mrs Rigby.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 09:29 AM

"ISLAM IS NOT, in any sense whatever, "A RACE"
All male Pakistanis with cultural implants are - you have chosen to defend that statement by describing it as "a misunderstanding on my part" and by persistently defending the sicko who said it as reasonable - wade in shit and you get covered with it
GET THAT please do not shout - it lowers the tone.
And no - it isn't where I am going wrong anyway.
Religious bigotry and racism are basically from the same stable - you are a religious bigot.
And neither are my points about Ireland a pathetic form of argument (except to those who have chosen sides) - and I have certainly never admitted any such thing.
Fighting groups who call themselves whatever, Christian, Muslim, Jew... whenever they claim to be killing "with God on our side"
You seem to have caught the 'denial' virus from your pupil - you argument has no substance other than that.
If you choose to direct your bile at "Muslims" rather than Muslim extremists - you really should consider voting for Farrage or Griffin in the next election - that's where your arguments are.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 09:08 AM

... as is your point about the Xtn sects in Ireland. Wotaboutery is a pathetic form of argument, as you well know, & have occasionally admitted when you have now & then come up for air from this rage against the universe in which you appear for most of the time to be entrenched. Name-calling·&·abuse right back to you, Mr Pots'n'Kettles Carroll.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 09:02 AM

"When I returned the question, you declined to answer.
Fine - I'll make my own assumptions on that one."
.,,.
Sorry, Jim; must have missed that. Of course I've met many Muslims. At University; as teaching colleagues, particularly at Peckham Manor School, which had a very diverse staff; on various social occasions. I too have never found anything to object to in them individually, & several have become friends.

But as I say, our individual experiences in this limited particular are beside the point at issue.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 08:57 AM

"to accuse an entire race"
.,,.,.

Exactly where you are going wrong, Jim, &the whole of this series of idiotic posts of yours falls down ·····

ISLAM IS NOT, in any sense whatever, "A RACE"

Can you really not get that?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 08:43 AM

"twenty-hundred-&-something"
It plays safe to limit discussion to 'the past' whenever you choose that to be
Over the last decade or so Israel have committed what they have and are still doing so in the name of Judaism (some of us think it just 'Israeli - you have indicated by your accusations that you believe it to be "Jewish - and "Anti-Semitic" to draw attention to it - but there you go).
Within my lifetime horrific abuses have taken place in the name of one religion or another - to pick on one and ignore the one is sectarian - to accuse an entire race for the crimes committed by religious fanatics or is racist perverts - is racist.
I don't believe abuses are committed by the tenets of any faith, just misuses and distortions of doctrines.
Any Christian could (and has) become a mass murderer if they followed the teaching of, say, Deuteronomy, - most people don't and Christians don't stone adulteresses or tear they eyes out of those who offend them.
You asked me once if I had ever met many Muslims - I replied I had met a few.
When I returned the question, you declined to answer.
Fine - I'll make my own assumptions on that one.
I found the people I met and worked for far more interesting, tolerant and ready to discuss both politics and religion, than I did most people, including my fellow countrymen.
I developed a shameful practice at work of never discussion race with the people I worked with, because I knew that it wold invariably lead to ugly, nasty name-calling
Something like a quarter of the people surveyed by the Daily Mail last year admitted to holding and expressing racist views.
I have never in my life, having travelled to over a dozen countries, including Muslim ones, experienced racial abuse because of my colour, belief or place of origin - wonder how many immigrants or even Britons from another country can say that?
I received my education in post-Empire Britain where we were still singing hymns that told us that to be foreign or of a different religion was to be "in error's chain"
Give us a break Mike - your bigotry is really not a lot different than the hate-mongers who preach the killing of infidels - or the sectarian thugs who will be marching a few hundred miles north of here, proudly telling us they are British and stamping on other people's beliefs.
I lived in London in the 70s and 80's when 'Christians' were placing bombs in shops, while at the same time on this side of the water other Christians who kicked with the other foot, were walking into crowded bars with machine guns and mowing down the drinkers.
Waddya want me to do - pick a side, tot up the bodies to decide which ones are the baddies and which the goodies (or maybe the less-baddies or goodies)      
As far as I'm concerned, you can all take your bigotry and stick it - that may seem unreasonable to you - from the particular side of the fence you choose to stand on.
Your childish abuse does nothing but underline your childishness
Am posting this now - hope this goes off ok, but there are probably a couple of typos for you to pick up instead
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 14 - 07:53 AM

Maybe so, Jim. "At one time or another" perhaps -- tho I don't unquestioningly accept that assertion in regard to all the abuses I have detailed; but this is now, twenty-hundred-&-something, not 14-whatever, not any vague 'some time or other'. It's no good complaining of how unfair I am being to all those dear friends of yours in Tower Hamlets or Handsworth or Bradford. Where Sharia Law obtains, it has in practically very case been imposed by a government properly elected by due process. So you think it OK, do you, that much of today's mainstream Islam, howsoever charming many of its individual adherents of your acquaintance may be, widely persists in operating to what you admit to being a medieval [at best!] moral & jurisprudential code in the C21? You say you don't defend these practices; but appear to be saying that, as it's only some Islamists that persist in them, well that's all right then, and it's somehow 'racist' to feel otherwise. So who precisely, one might then be moved to ask, is the racist?

The point you are so lamentably failing to take on board, Jim, is that these abuses are not incidental to, or adventitiously related to, or coincidental with, Islam; but are directly and intrinsically brought about by the very tenets, self-acknowledged & widely-embraced, of that faith; by the very fact that the elected regimes concerned are Islamic ones ( of various 'races': Saudis, Malays, Nigerians, are not racially identical). So it is idiotic to dismiss as 'racist' any animadversions against Islam, any warnings of its being a potentially mischievous, anti-humane faith & philosophical system whose influence should be resisted, or at least closely monitored, by the rest of the world. Such observations are the very opposite of 'racist'.

But I know it's pissing-down-the-wind or trying-to-stop-a-bandersnatch to make the effort to get all this into the thick, doctrinaire, mind's-made-up-please-don't-confuse-me-with-facts ☠ of James Carroll, with its infallible built-in instamatic racism-detector…

Ho-hum!

~M~