Paul Winter http://jta.org/user/profile/60859 en-us rkampeas@jta.org Copyright 2009 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 While I suspect that Hussein Soetoro has strong sympathies to mohammedans that he is hiding as it is impolitic to bring those into the open, I deplore the ridiculousness of equaiting him to Hitler. Firstly, there is no evidence that he is intolerant to Jews; just note his sidekick Rahm Emanuel. Secondly, comparing anyone to Hitler (or Stalin) trivialises the evil that the Nazis inflicted on humanity, especially Jews. Name calling is not a left/right issue, but one of irrationality and immaturity. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 As Baverman says, the Arabs have a perfect right to strike in a democracy such as Israel. But Braverman is wrong not to criticise Tibi for his lies and for not telling him to take his demonstration to Jordan. And the Knesset is wrong in not baring enemies of the state from that chamber; parliamentary democracies are based on a government and a LOYAL opposition. Tibi's mob is disloyal and both his representation and his citizenship should be withdrawn. As fo Ari H's accusation against Will Edwards of racism, I can only point out that that is a classical canard by left wing pseudo-intellectual enforcers of political correctness. The sad fact is that Arabs are haters and their hate extends to their own who might resist their campaigns. So if an Arab kept his or her shop open, the hateful extremists would shut the shop, shoot the shopkeeper and steal goods and none of the other Arabs would do anything but cheer. Treating Arabs as fair minded law abiding democrats insults our intelligence and offends against reality. Truth is never racism! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I really don't give a rat's a*** about Democrats and Republicans and anything the Thoroughy Disgusting posts needs to flow back into the sewer it leaked from. The point is that a boy died. That is sad; all life is precious. At 17 even if the lad were involved in the riot, more responsible people should have exercised a duty of care. The starting point for any consideration of the incident is that Arabs lie; it is part ot their religion: teqqiya. To keep the matter in perspective, we need to remember that it is possible that the boy failed to notice that the jeep was approaching and that the driver might not have noticed the boy while stones were flying. The automatic condemnation of Israel is getting a tad tedious as is the turning into propaganda of any tragedy by the mohammedans. They are a shameless lot of savages! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 While I would put it differently to sexy marvin, I concur with his assessment. It is utterly delusional to regard the Saudis as moderate. Yes, they do fear Iran, but they are antisemitic supremicists who told Obama to take a hike when he asked them to do a teensy weensy bit of confidence building. There are some Arab states that are not as wacky as the Wahabis, but as long as even those feel the need to show solidarity with their mohammedan brothers, even if they hate and murder them, none can be considered as moderate. Until the hatred of Israel and the upity dhimmi ceases and until the mohammedans stop challenging over who is stricter in his faith and who is fiercer and crueller to his enemies, there are no moderates. Only degenerate savages to cultivate for oil. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Quite apart from what the Pals want and what preconditions they set, continuing their delusion that the USA will be able to serve up Israel on a platter, why doesn't Mitchell just go home and tell his boss that the "peace" talks are a time wasting farce. He ought to remember that the Pals returned from exile in Tunisia after solemnly promising to resolve issues by peaceful means. As usual they lied and they continue to lie. They now set out preconditions for negotiations that are tantamount to Israel's unconditional surrender. Talking is a waste of time and Mitchell should wake up to that fact and tell his boss to start dealing with reality, rather than his his delusions of how pretty the world is because he, Pharaobama, is so pretty and articulate. The only way that there will be peace is if Israel ignores the world community, crushes the various competing Paly gangs and thus compels the local Arabs to start to deal with facts: Israel is there to stay as a state for Jews, both those in distress and those whose self-actualisation is tied to Zion.. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The USA's call for Israel to investigate "war crimes" alleged to have occurred during Operation Cast Lead is hypocritical. Why doesn't the USA investigate its attacks on civilians in Serbia. Why does't the UN investigate war crimes in Chechnya or crimes against humanity in Tibet. Why aren't crimes against humanity in South American drug wars invsetigated or the crimes taking place in Darfur or Yemen. What about prisoners being killed while in custody of various "Palestinian" gangs? Easy to answer: Israel's majority is Jewish, so they are fair game. The call for investigations is against a backdrop of IDF investigations of, and punishment if convicted, of personnel who have failed to follow rules of conduct. Such behaviours do not call for investigation by the International Court of Justice. Apart from Israel not being a signatory to that body (and neither is the USA) and "Palistan/Hamastan" not being states, being referred to that body is only approprieate if the nation is incapable or unwilling to carry out its own investigations. So mentioning the UNSC and the ICJ is not only inappopriate but a slur on Israel's legal procedures. The real point is that the investigations called for is with regard to Israel's carrying out a policy of deliberately targeting civilians. And that is a blood libel pure and simple. It ignores Israeli warnings by leaflets and telephone calls. In fact it makes standard military actions in defence of its civilians by Israel into crimes agaisnt humanity. If Israel investigates it must investigate its policy and since there is no evidence of any plan to harm civilians a finding of innocence would be disbelieved by the world community and further calls for investigation would ensue as though Israel were a defeated rogue nation. And the investigatrion would be by bodies that thanked Sudan for its cooperation in investigating Darfur. Israel is being treated as a Jew among the nations. It is found guilty by the rodef Goldstone and it is being asked to prove its innocence before a group of bloody handed villians who accused it and found it guilty before it was investigated. Isreal needs to carry out investigations openly and when the charges are disproves, as they will be, then it needs to make a complaint to the UNSC for the improper terms of referrence Goldstone accepted, for the improper way it gathered evidence, for its improper omission of evidence and context, for requiring Israel to carry out investigation in areas it can not enter, for casting aspersions on its judiciary, for making false, biased and baseless accusations and for making recommendations that exceeded its mandate. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I neither know nor care about Republican obstruction of appointees. What concerns me and should concern posters, is that NCHW and Reform are entering the political arena as Jews. The appointee issue does not affect Jews or issues of principle, so those groups should respect the separation of church and state and butt right out of the appointments issue. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Some posters seem to be caught up in the sick joke of Anerican health care. Not being a Yank, I couldn't give a damn about that except to point out that a nation that cannot solve its health care issues should not involve itself in matters vital to the existence of another nation. I don't know Cantor or of him, but his comment on Obama rings true. Pharaobama is being a dishonest broker in the Arab/mohammedan war against Israel. When he prattles on about all "settlement construction" to cease, he is saying that 1. there was a Palestine 2. that Israel invaded those lands 3. Israel is an aggressor which must be compelled to surrender its illgotten gains 4.since Israel is assumed to be a guilty aggressor, the Arabs do not need to negotiate 5. the conditions set out in UNSC 242 and 338 - negotiation regarding land for peace - no longer apply 6.since the Arabs lack the means to destroy Israel, it is up to the great powers to engage in politicide 7. in destroying Israel on behalf of the mohammedan world, the West will expect to get cheap oil and a respite from terror In being a false friend to Israel, O bummer is being a false friend to the democracy he has sworn to serve and defend. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Well Thoroughly Disgusting, like an mohammedan, you engage in fact inversion. Your naivette is laughable and your romaniticising of Palys displays your detachment from reality. The Paly sheila wears a nappy on her head, like her sisters in dar el haram and she fights by attempting to smuggle bombs into Jewish hospitals where she is treated. The PFLP was indeed a Christian gang and the only one which said - if you were silly enough to believe them - that "Palestine" should be secular and democratic. Indeed the word democracy, from the mouth of a Marxist-Leninist reeks of deceit. No Arab is fighting for their country. They never had one and never aspired for one when their dear brothers occupied Gaza, Samaria and Judea. And now when Jews are ready to give them a state they neither need nor deserve, all they are agitating for and hope to get powers to impose, is the denial of self-determination to the Jewish people. Both Barak and Olmert offered Palys 96-98% and a shere in Jerusalem. They rejected that. As far as I'm concerned, a mob which rejects 97% of something, deserves 100% of nothing. And your darling Hussein Seotoro will not stand up for any principle - he has again shown himself to be a vacillating opportunist. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Antisemites are utterly loathsome, particularly so when they are - or pretend to be - Jewish. the brainless echoing of Arab/mohammedan/"palestinian" lies does not turn it into the truth. There is not a single agreement that Israel's enemies have kept and urging Jews to show the unconditional forgiveness Christians often preach, but rarely practise, toward the overwhelmingly lying, vengeful, vicious, primitive, sexist, homophobic, supremicist mohammedan societies, is just evil! Acting against a civilised society which has laws and norms, which has contributed to humanity on behalf of savages whose only contributions to humanity are the homicude bomber and the airplane hijacker is acting against Western Judeo-Christian values. Asking Israel to negotiate with the Paleys is asking it to contravene the Noahide laws; Islam lacks laws - fatwas make up social rules. As for the "misspoken" principled attiude to Golstone's blood libel on behalf of a corrupt, cynical body that would have done proud of the courts of Hitler or Stalin, displays not something for which the Obama administration should be proud. It just shows what an opportunist has been elected to the white house. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The various "leaders" display hubris, blindness and disengenuity. The Israelis do not need USA intervention in solving their differences. The USA has a disastrous track record of mismanaging anything its state dept. meddles in. Butt out and ensure everyone else butts out and when the Palys have no one to save them from themselves, they will yield to reality and make peace. The unctious comment about discussing Jerusalem is transparently duplicitous. Jerusalem is Israel's capital and is not negotiable. The Arabs have had their chance and they have demostrated that concessions are seen as weakness and therefore a sign for more demands. When seen as a whole, the whole letter is seen as a hoax as it is nothing but a ploy to compel Israel to accept the scrapping of the demand for the Arabs to negotiate a settlement. There is nothing mentioned about Arab terror or incitement in this faux peace document. There is nothing mentioned about serial Arab violation of undertakings. It proposes that a sovereign state that has learned in blood and pain that the Arabs want nothing else but to destroy it, put everything on the table to negotiate with an enemy that has repeatedly proved to be perfidious. It demands that Israel, a democracy and and ally of the USA, make itself the vassal of a country that cannot even get its health care, drug culture or gun laws under control and which has not won a war since 1948, apart from beating Serbia. Mohammedans might thing Jews are stupid, but just by noting Israel's contribution to humanity, you can be sure they are not and they will not hand their future over to any USA government that cannot conceive that Arabs and Americans do not think and respond to matters in the same way. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The Zbigot is either getting senile or giving us classified information. Stating that the IAF has to fly over USA airspace in Iraq is dotty. Iraq's airspace does not belong to the USA and the USA is just a part of the coalition of the willing, which is a rump of NATO. The Iraqi air force was partly sent to Iran and not returned and partly buried; remember the MiG-25 in the desert? The comment that the USAF shooting at IAF would be like a reverse Liberty situation implies that Israel warned the USA to cease transmitting to Israel's enemies from its flagless spy ship. In any case, shooting at IAF planes would mean that the USA protects its enemies and is prepared to go to war with its fellow democracy in pursuit of its failed policy of appeasement. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Ari H again displays his anti-Israel credentials. His bias is so deep that he reflexively derides anything a Zionist says and his intellect is so inferiot that he is incapable of recognising that the point of the op-ed is to detail the real agenda of the Israel haters. Providence must be much loved by god: s/he whom the gods love they first send mad. S/he states that M Klein's ideas are old fashioned, but is incapable of comprehending that truths don't date. Prov. thinks that Jstreet is doing a good job, but cannot say what that is; so far they have only made noise. And she prattles on about needing to talk to adversaries, but won't have a bar of Klein. The point is that if JStreet invites a dirt bag like Marayati, it demonstrates that it supports the enemies of both Israel and the USA. It lies about being pro-Israel and it lies about everything to support its claims. It is built on lies and appeals to liars. Mort Klein is to be congratulated for exposing them in such detail. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The real issues have got lost in the fight between Jews/Zionists and the slime that uses this website to vomit their demented biases. Let the Jew hates rave; their insane hatred identifies and condemns them The issues are: 1. Iran is in violation of its NPT commitments 2. Iran does not state what it will do if civilised nations submit to its demands 3. Iran is demanding that it be admitted to the big boys club and that the world rearrange it power arrangements to give it dominance 4. Iran, like all mohammedan satrapies is posing as the leader of that political movement which pretends it is a religion 5. Iran is making demands on Israel which is not a signatory to the NPT. Its strqtegy is that the west pressure Israel to disarm in the hope that by making Israel defenceless, the west will not have to confront Iran. 6. Western military leaders are playing political games instead of planning campaigns of defence and attack. Western armed forces are exposing whole populations to jihadi slaughter by failing to strike jihadi rogues states like Iran. 7. Military planners who demand a one strike campaign have been watching too many video games. A number of strikes against selected targets would lead to regime change in Iran. Iran's proposal must be rejected. They are like a criminal who makes conditions for his trial while carrying out plans of further crimes. The Iranian dictators must be squashed like the cockroaches that they are. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Thoroughly digusting is additionally thoroughly ignorant. Under the Palestine Interim Agreement (1995), Israel has control over the seas outside Gaza. If the Hamas goons don't like it, they can call of their war. It is just as well that anonymous does not reveal his name, otherwise he would reveal himself as a fool. Carter was president 1977 - 1981 and the Iranian revolution was in 1979, during his no action administration. As for road blocks, etc they only went up when the Arabs took to the war path in 2000. No terror, no hardship. And yes, it is antisemitic to demand that Arab hardship be eased through the spilling of Jewish blood. When the Arab start to behave like civilised human beings instead of glorying in depravity when they stop regarding the Jew as a second rate dhimmi and they start to keep their undertakings, then there will be peace, road blocks will go and hardships will cease. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Excoriating those with only a left side of the head may feel good, but of major concern should be the co-director's assertion that Te Aviv "remains contested ground". Tel Aviv is the largest city in the Jewish homeland, built by Jews and overwhelmingly populated by them. If TA is contested, then the existence of Israel is contested. If Israel's existence is contested, then the right of self-determination of Jews and only of Jews is questioned and that is antisemitism. It is wrong and needs to be protested, the more so as it is being contested by and on behalf of an artificial ,islamist, authoritarian entity, the so-called Palestinians. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The issue is neither what bigoted ignoramuses say nor even what an odd Swede seeking safety by profile minimisation might say. The issue is that the Arab/Mohammedan/ultraLeftRight lie industry is targeting Jews world-wide. That is completely unacceptable! The self appointed guardians of political correctness who fail to speak out against the oldest hate - antisemitism - not only show cowardice and irrational bias, but falsity to their ideals. In the end, their blind hate and hypocrisy is to their detriment in that they champion forces hostile to liberalism and the same forces which oppress any who come under their control. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 My previous post was from a pragmatic perspective and I forgot the principled one. The principle of prohibiting the use of the word naqbq is that it is merely the false Arab narrative, it is not history! Teaching lies is against the spirit of education. Narratives are history only in the underworld of post-modernism. The Arabs must accept that their situation is their fault and that the pride that they are trying to salvage is false. There are various bloggers who quote at lenght to try to prove the lie that Israelis are the ones who need to make amends for their sins against the poor suffering Paleys. They might as well quote from Mein Kampf for all that their sources are worth. Tell you what chums. Learn your history instead of parading your ignorance and bigotry. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 No nation can allow a sector to educate its children to become alienated from the mainstream. Any sector which feels alienated in a country must exercise its UN guaranteed right to emigrate. No nation can allow tax payers funds to be used to teach a future generation of tax avoiders to become a fifth column. Irael must not be unique among nations in nurturing dissent among various sectors of its society. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 What all of the posters have overlooked is that if the International Criminal Court chooses to hear the complaints of war crimes against Israel, then (1) Israel as a whole - unlike a person like Charles Taylor - is put on trial and (2) Israel's going to war is treated as a crime. It is notable that no criminal charges are laid against the USA for action against Iraq, against Russia for action against Chechnya, China for its actions in Tibet and Sinkiang. Israel and all right thinking nations must demand that the ICJ refuse to hear such claims, because even at Nuremberg only individuals were tried. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 It is a waste of time trying to guess what an uncommunicate administration is working on. What is clear though, is that the planning excludes Israel, the main object of the plans. It treats as a dependency which has no choice but to obey its master's voice. Whatever the plan is, it will be a flop, delivered by an ignorant ideologue singing the tune of his antisemitic Arabist state dept. The only way for peace in the middle east is for everyone to butt out, stop saving the Arabs from themselves and in doing so, compel them to face reality: they are a beaten people who need to accept the humanitarian and generous terms their conqueror is offering. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Lots of comments, lots of personal abuse, many off the mark. The point is: a newspaper edited by an openly anti-Israeli editor publishes a blood libel against Israel by a known antisemite and the government of the country disowns the condemnation of the article by its ambassador. That government cites freedom of the press when it comes to Israel (or Jews), but it imposed censorship when it came to mohammedans staging demonstrations of outrage at the Danish publication of innocuous cartoons about their prophet. In other words, the Swedish government is not only being hypocritical, but in disoning itself from its ambassador, it shows itself to concur with the newspaper. Finally, while the Swedes are right in stating that it is not a democratic government's job to censor newspapers, it is the duty of any civilised government to censure bigots in its midst. As for Hess and Miriam and Hicks, your irrational hate identifies you as non-entities, below contempt. The world you construct is created from lies and the smallness of your minds condemns you to perpetual pitiable imbecility. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 At times it is difficult to know what the writer of the article is trying to say. What cannot be ignored is that NGOs regularly demand a higher standard of Israel than of any other country, that Israel was under attack for years by terrorists, that the Arabs break the rules of war in failing to wear uniforms and in using their civilians as human shields - and the IDF has videos of that and often the IDF has issued warnings of sites to be attacked. The international community not only fails to credit the IDF with unprecedented care for civilians, but instead condemns Israel and Jews, all the while engaging in lawfare, while Israel haters who have infiltrated and perverted NGO's pretend to be concerned with humanitarian values. The Israel/Jew haters have been appropriately answered. Ari H though parades his illogic and prejudice. The BTS mob are cowards if they complain anonymously and the issue of safety is only in Ari's mind because it was not in the article. The expressed fear of ostracism is disingenuous, because in Israel there are enough on the left to provide social support and because no democratic government can tell its citizenry how to respond to people who have earned the loathing and contempt of their fellows. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 It is a complete lie to assert that Jews took anything from mohammedans; Jews have lived in that region for thousands of years before Mohammed dreamed up his religion. The IDF has no more right to tell its personnel to respect mohammedan fasting customs than it would to tell secular Jews to fast during Yom Kippur. And do mohameddans or christians not eat in front of Jews during Yom Kippur? As for gun shaped toys, it is not the IDF's responsibility to decide if a gun is a toy or a weapon. It is a parent's responsibility to not allow children to play sodiers in a war zone. The IDF must not be allowed to become a baby minding service. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 How incredibly arrogant for some USA clown to set out steps that Israel needs to take to make peace with a bunch of terrorists who want nothing other than to dictate surrender terms to a nation that has defeated their terror war. The only steps that Obama should take are long ones off a short pier. The Arabs will never negotiate in good faith while they have any state that will save them from their folly. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Er.. folks, your debate is fine, but it misses a vital point: what the hell is the UN doing wasting funds to promote a partisan view? Waters is merely an empty skulled sounding chamber. It is obscene to equate inconvenience and property loss to the death of people. It is obscene for anyone to complain that a nation erects a barrier to stop those who would murder its citizens. It is shameful to defend the Paleys who are so stupid, nihilistic and hate driven that even after the terror tactic has failed, they still keep trying it. As for Hess, quoting the opinion of a court which perverts truth and justice, a corrupt bigoted UN and nations which spout the finest principles which they themselves ignore, tells us more about your opinions, than the justice of Israel's actions. Please note: there is no Palestine and Israel has a right to confiscate land it needs for its security 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Oops: sorry for last sentence typos on post above. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Bibi is failing as a leader if he defends enemies of the nation he leads. Peace Now (PN) defames Israel and treacherously allies itself with its enemies. It defies democracy and reality in pursuing an ideal which has failed. Cheryl is right. Before Arafat launched his war in 2000, PN was a virus like HIV. After all the bastardry of the Paleys PN is like AIDS and right thinking people need to quarantine it. Ehrens bemoans the death of an illegal combatant. It is presumptuous to demand penalty free action in a foreign land in other peoples' conflict simply because that person is a citizen of the USA. Extraterritoriality is dead and so is Ottoman capitulation. Israel is independent and Paley supporters treating it as some US vassal state deserve neither sympathy of protection. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Savitsky is spot on: the Arabs demand everything and are willing to give nothing. They regard Israel's existence as an insult to their supposed superiority and they need to humiliate it to restore their arrogant self-image. The uncalibrated Hussein Obama thinks that throwing Israel under a bus will win him friends and if Israel ceases to exist, cheaper oil prices for the USA. He is too dumb and full of himself to appreciate how Mohammedans despise the leader of crusader nations, the USA and how they regard him when he has committed a crime under shari'a by abandoning Islam. His appeasement is a failure and so too will be his presidency. As for the ignoramus who asserts that UNSC 242 calls for the estblishment of a Palestinian state, I have only two things to say: (1) read it and (2) eat your words. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Braying the "Paley" narrative, does not make it history. Jews were a minority in the Ottoman district, but Jewish immigration started well before WW1. Jews paid for the land they bought from absentee landlords and developed it. When the poor, backward region started to grow and prosper due to Jewish effort and initiative, Arabs flooded in and now the al-Baghdadis, the al-Masris and al-Libis claim to be natives with the "right of return". No other displaced group makes such a claim: neither the Sudenten Germans, nor the Polish Volkes Deutsch, nor the Indians/Pakistanis, not the Japanese from the Kuriles, nor even the Jews from Arab lands. The Mohammedans just cannot abide the thought of a Jewish state on waqf lands, nor the shame of being beaten in battle by Jews. All that, however, is beside the point. The point is that Israel is a democratic nation and the Arabs who have brand named themselves as "Palestinian", want to destroy it far more than they want to have a state of their own. They could have had a state in '67, in 2000 and '08. It is utter chutzpah for any person or nation to tell Jews in Israel how to define themselves. It is delegitimisation to tell Israel how to accommodate a defeated entity which has no response to any situation except violence and delegitimisation of Israel is one form of antisemitism. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 At Durban I, Robinson stopped antisemites reviving Zionism = Racism and did say that the sight of an Israeli flag with a swastika made her feel a Jew. However, she did allow the implication of Z = R in the document and in 2005 talk she asked her audience to reflect on how Israel might remind them of Nazi Germany. To me, that identifies Mary R as an antisemite. Better to research than to reflexively assume a politically correct leftist position. Ari H's previous post inplied that he was putting a more polite gloss on Thoroughly Disgusting's antisemitic rave. Clarity and distancing is prudent in some cases. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Thanks to JTA we have a summary of Jewish antisemitic groups who are in the pay of foreign states hostile to Israel. It is a good roll of dishonour. The point missed is that USA Jewish groups criticised Pres Hussein Obama for sullying the Medal of Freedom by awarding it to an antisemite who ignored human right issues of people in Burma, Sudan and the Republic of Congo, while weeping for the abuses falsely and hysterically claimed by the Paleys. The dishonourable Israeli groups are expressing support for an increasingly dishoourable USA president's choice in opposition to USA Jewish critics and stand in support of a person not only opposed to Israel but to Jews world wide, irrespective of their stance on Zionism. When Thoroughly Disgusting calls anyone on who is not left of Trotsky a Zionazi, and Ari H supports him, then those two identify themselves as creatures beyond the pale of civilised discourse. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Rep Cantor must be congratulated on his courageous and principled stand regarding his country's attitude to its friend and ally and to the blinkered cowardly attitude it displays to the rogue state of Iran. One hopes that he is a harbinger of an awakening in the USA's legislature and eventually its electorate, to the menace that its executive has become and through that, force it to deal with situations realistically and decently. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Thoroughly Disgusting, why don't you crawl back into the sewer which vomited you out in disgust. Your antisemitic hysterical lie, worthy of a Goebbels, a Luther or a Haj al-Husseini put you beyond the pale of civilised discourse. Jews do no kill children or civilians and the best proof of that is that no nation on earth, certainly not your USAF which murdered Serbian civilians, has warned a civilian population by phone and leaflet drops of attacks. No other nation has sent in troops to clean out filthy terrorist nests like Jenin; most nations would have bombed the place to dust. Israel deals with matters legally even when the post-Zionist judiciary hands down uunfair ideological rulings. The Arabs on the other hand invent laws and demand that others respect their non-negotiable absolutist demands. They are supremicists who seek refuge in the most repressive interpretation of the world's most repressive excuse for a religion. They simply cannot abide the thought of a Jew as their equal. And they will not progress because they are a bunch of promitive clans where corruption is the rule and lying is sanctioned by the word of their paedophile prophet. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Anyone who thinks that Obama will learn is fooling himself. Adiorno, way back in the 1940s, demonstrated that facts do not change the minds of bigots. Hussein Soetoro is an arrogant ignorant bigot with strong sympaties to his Muslim brothers and sisters. USA Jewry, falling over itself to confirm its liberalism, supported a person who would have been laughed out of the presidential race had he not been (half)Black. He means Israel ill and Israel needs to take steps to protect itself and to ride out the assault of this one term bumbler. There is no problem with settlements or anything else that the Paleys could not get over if they wanted peace and a state of their own. But all they want is to destroy Israel and to humiliate Jews and in that they have the Great Hussein's backing. Israel has a right to build in Judea and Samaria until the Arabs have signed a peace treaty. As defeated aggressors, they have no right to dictate to Israelis what to do on disputed land, even if they have the great USA's backing. Before Obumbler lays down the law to Israelis, he should try to live up to American ideals as hard as that might be for a half Kenyan who had half grown up in Indonesia and half of whose best friends are Mohammedans. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Reading the posts, the overwhelming impression is: so much written, so little said. The only valid point is the call for transparency. It is not valid or relevant that NGOs assisted Soviet Jews. Those NGOs were not working in the USSR. And in those days NGOs had not yet been taken over by groups with anti-democratic and often antisemitic agendas. The simple fact is that Israeli NGOs which prostitute themselves to foreign nations are commiting treason. Foreign nations supporting NGOs that falsely denigrate Israel are engaging in hostile acts, the more so as Israel is not at peace. It is arrogant stupidity of posters to ignore that Israel has been and is at war. There is no way that during WW2 the USA would have allowed Nazi or Japanese groups to freely spread lies about USA. Hypothesising that NGOs might be revealing improper practices, when in fact we are dealing with actual cases of anti-Zionist/antisemitic bias and propaganda is utterly moronic and plays into the hands of Jew haters and totalitarians who use our best values in their fight to dominate us and in so doing destroy those very values. Wake up to yourselves guys! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Israel is to be commended for investigating complaints irrespective of the fact that any conviction is taken by anti-Zionists and antisemites as confirmation of Israel's and Jew's criminalit and any exoneration is sneered at by the usual Israel/Jew haters as a white wash, folowed by demands for interntional investigations and trials befor international tribunals. Investigating allegations of misconduct is what every civilised nation must do to maintain respcability in its own eyes. BUT... what penalties does Israel impose on those who make false and malicious allegations?? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I most earnestly hope that the report of a construction freeze is wrong. If it is true, then Bibi is not merely an absolute gutless moron, but a traitor and deserves the same fate as Rabin. Construction must proceed. The US must be told by word and deed that Israel is a master in its land. The Arabs must see and feel in their bones that they cannot dictate to Jews through their nihilism, aggression and bloody-mindedness. And if Bibi cannot show that to the US and the Paleys, Lieberman must be appointed PM. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 People who quote Shlaim or Amnesty as authoritative unbiassed sources are dishonest and/or fools. People who claim that Israel is an aggressor, colonial, land stealing state and never mention the uncompromising, aggressive, lying Arabs demonstrate Sharansky's three "Ds" of antisemitism: delegitimisation, demonisation and double standards. Now getting to the article by isi Liebler. He called on USA Jews to stand up for Israel and to tell Hussein Soetoro (aka Barrack Obama) that he is wrong and his policy is alienating a friend and ally at the sme time that he is earning the contempt if the Mohammedans he is courting. Equally to the point is that Jews need to assert their right to be treated as the loyal citizens that they are and not as Neal Sher observed a few years ago, as guests in their own country. The USA's president is doing a disservice to Israel, the USA, moderate Muslim and the free world in general. He is an ignorant ideologue who needs to be confronted by reality and by Jews who have principles and who will not bow down before someone in high office. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Alain makes a valid point. A Kosovar Albanian is thanking the good old USA by planning terror against it. The USA played a dirty game attacking Serbia in an internal civil war started by drug dealing Albanians when for all intents and purposes they had self government in a historically Serbian area. The Germans were playing ethnic groups against each other and the USA could not stomach a successful socialist nation in Europe. As for FBI monitoring terrorist groups in the USA, forget it; while CAIR and various Holy Land funds are going on it is a failure. From a Jewish perspective, NATO aggression in Serbia is something Israel must guard against; there for their own selfish national and group interests they imposed their will on a nation and created a horrible regime that discriminates against a minority in their midst. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 One must presume that the Israeli government will discipline any soldier who lies about his actions or those of others. Ari H's demand for the Israeli government and the IDF to disprove Breaking the Silence claims is unrealistic. The BtS allegations were made anonymously and without giving details of specific actions. There is nothing that can be investigated or proven one way or the other. The BtS claims are nothing but a smear of the IDF and Goldstone's terms of referrence are nothing but a demand that allegations of IDF war crimes be confirmed. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I am not quite sure which universe Hovland is living in or what he smokes or drinks: Hussein Obama is not pressuring the "Palestinians" in any way at all. Only an idiot wants war and that is why Abbas is happy for Dayton to train his "police". There are no borders between Israel and the disputed territories on which mostly Arabs live. Borders are established by treaties; neither the PA nor Hamas are prepared to negotiate. Abbas makes negitiations conditional on Jews ceasing to build on their land and Obama is backing them. Jews need to abandon their liberal self image and look to their own interests after Obama revealed his duplicity. He was an is an opportunist and a bumbling one at that. If Israel goes down due to USA pressure, the comfortable life and prestige of USA Jews will also go down. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Oops, I missed Thoroughly Disgusted thoroughly disgusting concluding clause. The Arabs who have brand named themselves "Palestinian" since 1965 are to a large extent not indigenous. Arabs with names like al-Baghdadi of el-Masri (Egypt) are people who migrated to Palestine after Jews developed it. Jews have lived in that part of the world a couple of millenia before Mohammed had a series of dreams. More to the point, UNWRA accepts as a refugee any Arab who had been in Palestine for TWO YEARS !!! or more, so lets not talk about indigenous Arabs. The Arab claim that Jews stole their land was raised before WW2 and the Peel Commission of 1937 found that they were baseless. Jews paid exorbitant prices for useless land and made it flower, but Arabs find that the lie of land theft is too good to let go especially when there are fools aplenty who will accept anything bad about Jews, because it reinforces their prejudices. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Letters to the Sydney Morning Herald of 28.7.09 reveal that the Anzac's attack on Surafend was not just in retaliation for the murder of a Kiwi by a theiving Bedouin, but as a response to Allenby's, the British commander's refusal to apprehend the killer. This was on top of the Anzac finding that a wounded soldier left in the desert was often found with his throat cut and his clothes and equipment stolen (Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Vol VII). The Anzac were a rough and ready lot who had little respect for their British officers and they were not too fussed how they exacted justice. Ignorant, politically correct, comments on the colonisation of Australia are quite unhelpful. There was a great deal of brutality, but there was also much harm done by people trying to be humane in terms of 19th and 20th century concepts. Judging those by 21st century standards gives a false perspective. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Only pretend Jews would for a second consider being members of NIF. It is beyond stupid to object to the Jewish nature of Israel or to consider the most ethical army on earth to merit criticism (see UK Col R Kemp's comments). If Israel was not Jewish where would the Falashas have gone? Where would the Jews who could not get into the USA have gone? Jews have a special history and some need to return to the land of their ancestors, Many as well stay in Israel or make aliyah, because that is the place where their version of Jewsihness can be fulfilled and it is not the place of USA Jews to demand that those people surrender their democratic rights and their battle earned right to self-determination. The comment that NGO Monitor is ultra right wing is so silly that it can only be believed by a wing nut who demands that Breaking the Silence testimonies, given anonymously without detail, be accepted as true because they cannot be proven to be false. As the cartoon Homer famously says: duh! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The USA's nuclear umbrella isn't worth a tinker's dam after Iran goes nuclear. If the USA won't act against Iran for decades of violating its NPT obligations, it won't act if Iran threatens Sunnis, increases support to terrorists or turns Tel Aviv into a sheet of glass. And even if Iran incinerates Jews in Israel there is no way the USA would retaliate with more than the freezing of Iran's bank accounts. The Hussein and Hillary clown act needs to be ignored by Israel, which needs to eliminate the Iranian threat all by itself. In doing so it will be condemned by the world community for saving it from the threat Iran poses to it. Shame on the international community and shame particularly on the craven USA which should have years ago wiped out Iran for its nuclear plrogram and for supplying terrorist who killed USA troops in Iraq. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Fernando, your understanding regarding Israel's establishment is poor. The British mandate was for a part of the Ottoman empire which was broken up. Jews purchased land and developed it. AS far back as 1937, the Peel commission dismissed Arab claims of land theft. Jews set up instiutions and were largely self-governing, something the local Arabs who brand named themselves in 1965 as "Palestinians". It is wrong to say Israel forbids building by Arabs; quite the contrary - in far too many instances Arabs build illegally and their contempt for the laws of their country is overlooked. they also are free to build in self administered areas in Judea and Samaria. They are free to build in Gaza with whatever rubble they have, but not with cement and steel that Hamas uses for its war effort. The notion that any nation supply its enemy with materials to assist its war efforts is absolutely ridiculous. If the Gazans want to build they must stop trying to destroy Israelis, their towns and their nation. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Folks, why don't you address the issue in front of you instead of arguing USA party politics. The issue is: the right of Jews to live in all parts of Jerusalem. Is that now clear? As Bibi commented, if Arabs can live in west Jerusalem, Jews can live in east Jerusalem. Jerusalem is Israel's capital and if the world or Hussein (Obama) Soetoro does not like it, then to quote Abu Amar, "they can drink the waters of Gaza". The principle underlying the lie of Arab Jerusalem is that the city was in two parts. It overlooks the fact that it was in "Arab" Jerusalem that 57 synagogues were destroyed by the religion respecting Mohammedans, that Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority since the mid 1800s and that the only reson that the Arabs occupied the eastern half of the city, was that the British officered Arab Legion expelled the Jews from there. And this points to another hypocrisy among the Mohammedans and the international community that wants to sacrifice Israel to both curry favour and avoid jihadi terror from Mohammedans and because antisemitism has become fashionable again. UNSC 242 stated the iinadmissibility of gaining land through force, except that generally a beaten aggressor loses land. only in Israel's case that is ruled inadmissible, but the Jordanian aggression of 1948 is to be the "Palestinian's" reward. Shame on all of them! Bibi, Israel and justice must be supported! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Will Edwards, you are almost certainly wrong about David Hicks being an Arab. From Hick's comments about "down under", it is nearly 100% certain that he is the self same person who is a Muslim convert, who is openly antisemitic, who was caught in Afghanistan fighting with the Talibaan and was released from Guantanamo after pleading guilty, to complete his sentence in Australia. His restriction on usiing the internet have now been lifted. His spelling has improved since he wrote his incoherent letters to his father; Gitmo's educational services seem to have improved him. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Halpern's comments are spot on and most of the posters above are vile antisemites and liars. The Palies are not: starved, killed as a matter of policy, worked to death, killed by exposure, brutalised, processed in death factories or shot by killing squads. Palies are not targeted for extermination world-wide. There is no legislation restricting Israeli Arabs from participating in any sphere of life so it is pure malice and stupidity to say that Israel practises apartheid. Utterly despicable liars like you should crawl back under the slimy rocks where you normally dwell shutting out reality and nurturing your hateful delusions. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Avigdor Lieberman must be congratulated on his plain speaking. We need to stop being diplomatic and speak honestly. Solana must have taken his lead from Obama's reneging on understandings which were in the public domain. Solana is proposing that the Security Council repudiate 242 and 338 and impose a settlement under Chapter 7. He says nothing about what conditions should be imposed on Israel and what should be done if the Arabs are not satisfied and make further demands. He also treats Israel with complete contempt assuming that Israel would simply cave in to all demands, which well might include the return of all "refugees". 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 A source different from JTA reports that US Zionist groups were not invited to the meeting. The sad fact is that anti-Zionist organisations are acting the role of useful idiots to Hussein Obama and the once powerful and principled AIPAC is a fearing, intimidated set-up. Jews concerned about Israel and for the western civilisation need to make their voices heard. They need to tell their president that his sell-out of Israel, a friend and ally, sells out the USA, democracies around the world and forces of porgress in the muslim world. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 It is tragic that Israeli lives were thrown away by politicians runnig a war and a fly-boy being chief of staff, plus an army that was so run down that it didn't even have rations for its soldiers. Olmert and his corrupt clique are lucky that Israel is a civilised democracy. In a typical ME country there would have been a coup and that gang would have been torn to pieces. One hopes that the current government is more clear sighted and focused on Israel's iinterests, but there are signs that Netanyahu is going weak at the knees in response to USA bullying. That too is a tragedy. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Allow? ALLOW??? Who the hell does the USA damn well think it is? Who the hell does the USA think Israel is? As for the "billions" of aid - 1% of Israel's GDP - the USA can stick it where the sun never shone; Israel has lost more in USA vetoing arms sales under the pretext of USA technology when it was clearly stoppiing superior Israeli technology its firms could not beat. Israel builds where Israel needs to build until a treaty with the local Arabs - yes the LOCAL ARABS, not the USA - is reached. The USA pretended in the past to be an honest broker. It has shed that pretense; it is a partner of the Arabs and Israel needs to treat it as such. And it must say so loudly enough for the USA legislature and USA Jews to wake up to the Obama menace to Israe, Jews and the the USA itself. Obama deludes himself that he is winning friends among the Mohammedans when what he is really winning is contempt from the Isllamofascists who dominate the umma that "nation of peace". 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The French and other europeans and the USA prefer Barak and Livni because they are spineless. Lieberman is from a culture where they don't mind offending others by telling the truth as they see it. Diplomats deal in lies and ambiguities. Lieberman sets out his red lines and those who want to bully Israel into commiting national suicide to advance their own interests over Israel's grave prefer dealing with the glib jelly-back appeasers. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 It is nonsense to pretend that Israel will sell USA technology to India when two USA companies are bidding for the same contract. What technologies do they use? Martian? It is obvious that the veto on sales is not about technology but about eliminating a competitor who makes a better product. Besides, if there is cooperation between USA and Israeli firms then they must be using some Israeli technologies. I am reminded that some years ago, the USA sold Saudi Arabia aerial refueling technology developed by Israel, ignoring Israel's objections. The USA couldn' t care less for Israel until it whipped the Arabs in '67, then made it a client state when de Gaulle turned on it. It is time Israel became independent in the manufacture of weapons, possibly on partnership with India. It has no Western "democratic" friends left. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 In view of our history, Jews must have a place on earth where we can live in safety and continue to develop our culture. There is no contradiction between democracy and a state where Jews dominate because they are the majority. And if Jews need to bend the rules a bit to stay the majority, it is far better than the pogroms, expulsions, economic restrictions and massacres to which we have been subjected or the ethnic cleansings that are occurring in Burma, Darfur, Rwanada, and various South American countries. If the Arabs refuse to have Jews in a future Palestine, Israel should denaturalise Muslims in Israel unless they do national service. That way they could live and breed till they exhaust themselves, but they could not vote or claim state benefits. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I have no time for the heredim, but critics of their actions in this case need a bit of background. Anne Barker of the ABC is of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not the USA's ABC. She has reproted in a most biased way on ME events and she has also reported falsely on April 23. After a complaint from the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, the ABC (Australia's equivalent to the USA's NPR) apologised. While I utterly deplore anyone spitting, if Barker was recognised as a hostile reporter, her presence would have been seen as provocative by people prone to uncivilised, indeed un-Jewish, behavior. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Well, at lest no lives were lost. But it it interesting to note that Mohammedans riot, burn, kill and assault others if anyone criticises their religion or shows lack of respect for their holy text. And then they set out to desecrate the holy texts of other religions. Their critics are smeared as Islamophobes. But if they offend others' beliefs, they are merely performing their religionious duties. Truly Islam is an ugly pseudo-creed! While clearly there are some good people who think of themselves as Muslim, the sad fact is that the categories of good person and good Muslim are mutually exclusive. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Fortunately I am not a lawyer, so I can only rely on a sense of decency and justice. If there is a test, either people pass it or they don't. It is nonsensical to claim that New Haven's fire fighter's test favours whites. The test has been around for a long time and non-whites have had an equal opportunity to study towards it. If they cannot master the material, they simply don't cut the mustard - end of story. Further, it is fatuous to claim that a fire officer's decisions are merely skill based. A captain or leutenant must be able to explain and instruct and if he or she does not have the theoretical or presentation skills to do so, then those people are unfit for promotion. Perhaps the best example of the falacious arguments for dismissing the test results is the case of a white dyslexic fire fighter who took time off, got coaching and passed the test, only to been robbed of the fruits of his efforts by Obama's Supreme Court appointee. (Whether a dyslexic person is a fit fire officer is another matter). 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 If anyone of the posters had read the article, they wold have seen that Israel intends to transfer humanitarian supplies on the ship to Gaza. It is therefore stupid to assert that intercepting the ship will damage Israel's image. Also, the quantity of humanitarian aid flowing from Israel to Gaza dwarfs the piddliing amount of goods on a small ship. The Arabs of Gaza are at war with Israel and Israel has a right to impose a blockade on its enemy, even if some people regard the rocketing of Sderot as something that Jews deserve for daring to rise above their dhimmi status. Lastly, it is stupid to accept that the purpose of the "aid" ship was humanitarian; the clear aim was to challenge and break down Israel's control of Gaza's coast, just like the abandonment of the Pholadelphi Corridor ar Rice's insistence broke down the control with Egypt and allowed the entry of Katysha and Iranian Grad rockets into Gaza. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 That the university's investigation substantiated some of the claims against Massad show that he is an unfit person to be a teacher. He should have been dismissed. Instead the anti-Jewish uni in a centre of Jewishness has rewarded him with tenure just as it did an incompetent Arab female whose main contribution to knowledge was a anti-Israel, anti-Jewish rant presented in the jargon of socio-psychobabble. And Ari H if you in the USA are not aware of these matters as I am in Australia and do you bother to read the article on which you comment, your contribution to the debate is negative. Further, demanding proof of established fact - presumably proof to your satisfaction - is an old trick of dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorists which any sensible person would ignore. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Hussein Obama/Soetoro may well have a friendly attitude to Hamas, but his country's ally is distinctly cool toward that offshoot of the Moslem Brotherhood. It is utterly obscene that no USA president or any other world leader is prepared to tell the Arabs that in comparing the drubbing they got for their aggression in 1948 to the Shoah, is stupid, childish and supremicist in demanding that the world accept that anyone standing up to and beating a Mohammedan must apologise and make amends. Their delusional world view and their inversion of every fact must be exposed and openly rejected. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The IRC has a long undistiguished record with regard to Jews, going back to Teresienstadt when it inspected the "model ghetto" and found that the Jews were treated well. Anyone who would have cared to look, would have seen that the house fronts were false, but instead it gave the Nazis a clean bill of health. One must note that the IRC whines about the lack of construction material in Gaza, blaming Israel, but not Gaza's other neighbor Egypt, which has as little interest in supporting Hamas - Iran's proxy - as Israel. If the Gazans want building materials, they can cease their attacks on Israel, accept previous agreements and recognise Israel. If that is too much they can keep on enjoying tents. Now for Ari H. Please don't be a wise guy telling us that we must distinguish between combatants with civilians. Firstly, Hamas terrorists dress in civies and live among the population. Secondly, there is no reason for Israel to cerate a precedent in supplying an enemy population with building materials - it already exceeds its humanitarian supply commitment - the more so when it has evidence that Hamas steals building materials and uses it to build bunkers for its war effort and for tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 There is a saying among Hungarian Jews: If a Jew is stupid he is very stupid. A temporary freeze is a prelude to a permanent one. Building on land owned by Israel must go on. The Arabs must not be allowed to dictate to Jews what they can do on their land. The Arabs must not be given a right to claim Jewish land as theirs. The land is not in dispute, irrespective of the baying of the international community. Israel does not need to appease or demonstrate any more confidence building towared the Arabs. They can negotiate without conditions or continue their statelessness and self imposed misery. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 At Oslo Israel was in fact in a stong positon. At the same time, it was lead by appeasers who deluded themselves that not being too tough with Arabs who had become hated and despised in the Arab world for backing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait would yield a good outcome. Today the same arrogant, aggressive, uncompromising absolutists demand Israel's surrender and they are backed by their USA ally. Their demand to expel Jews from a future Palestine, combined with a fictitious "right of return", makes it imperative that Israel is the embodiment of Jewish self-determination. It is not a ploy to deny "Palestian" statehood, but to safeguard the Jewish homeland, and if the Palies don't like that, tough. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Rowe, stop spouting the antisemitic rubbish of the mob which refers to DC and ZOG. Anyone who believes that nonsense must first renounce reality, turn off the news and start believing in the tooth fairies and conspiracy theories.Neither Israel nor USA Jews has much influence over USA policy - if they did Iran instaed of Iraq would have been invaded first. Attribute your country's problems to your incompetent policy and intelligence groups. As for Obama's frankness being a surprise, forget it. The only thing that is surprising is Obama's bias, two facedness, his lack of respect for agreements, his disrespect for his only ally in the Middle East, his contempt for the democratic choice of Israelis and his eagerness to sell out Israel to curry favour with Mohammedan dictatorships even as his best efforts are earning him contempt among those he wants to buy off. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The Obama administration demands?? DEMANDS?? What unmitigated chutzpah! Hussein Obama has no demands on the so-called Palestinians, none on the Sudanese, the Zimbabweans, the Burmese, the Iranians, the ..., but he makes demands on his only allies and the only democracy in the Middle East! How utterly shameful of a nation that presents itself as the exemplar of honesty and democracy. Jerusalem is not on the table. It is Israel's capital and only under Jewish control have all religions been treated equally. When Hussein Obama demands both a cessation of Jewish building on Jewish land and the non -demolition of illegally built Arab dwellings his two facedness and bias truly emerge. He needs to be told that to his face. USA's Jews need to write to their senators and congressmen to pull the ideologue who wants to buy Mohammedan favour by jeopardising Jewish self determination into line. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The article gives the game away in referring to people settling in the West Bank. That is a fabrication: the settlments are either in Judea or Samaria. As for the hill top settlements, they are on land to which no one has title, so unless one declares all land outside the '48 ceasefire lines as Arab, Jews have a right to build there until a new Arab state is formed and that is unlikely in the foreseeable future. And while violence is to be deplored, I see no reason to so hareshly condemn Jews who merely follow the example of their Arab neighbors in their protests. If an Arab state is formed they can and will be removed. Until then, leave them alone and use them to rub the Arab noses towards reality. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Ah, wrong again Ari H, puts in his tuppence worth. There is no moral imperative in feeding a hostile population which voted in a terrorist group, which wages war on Israel. Let them pull in their belts and reflect why they are inconvenienced. As for world opinion, who cares: the international community that accepts the expulsion of aid teams from Darfur, which does nothing for Zambia or Burma, has no right to criticise Jews who oppose supplying terrorist groups, who regulary steal ais enbtering Gaza. Isn't it amazing how Ari H's humanitarian instincts do not extend to Jews, including Shalit. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I cannot credit that Ari H regards the visit to Judaism's holiest site as demeaning and inflamatory, an exercise in party politics. Jerusalem is the captial of Isael and no Mohammedan may deny Jews access to the Temple Mount. Denying Jewish access is an act of dicrimination and contempt for Judaism. It is a continuation of the1948 Arab policy of reneging on their commitnents to allow access. It is beyond belief that a person who is Jewish recommends appeasement, with its long history of failure, and voluntarily accepting a second class role for Jews in their own land. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Years ago Neal Sher observed that USA Jews are acting like guests in their country. USA Jews are an intimidated selfish lot desparate to be more American than any WASP and as long as their incomes, status and self-image as the most liberal of USA liberals is left alone, they are as ready to condemn Israel as they are to refrain from exercising their constitutional rights. As for Israel, for many years the post-Zioninsts have been ready to sell out their nation to please the Arabs and USA's Arabist State Dept. Netanyahu and Lieberman are asserting Israel's independence and USA Jewry should start standing up for its vital interests. The cowardice displayed in the case of Rosen and Weissman is shameful and both USA Jewish rganisations and Israel must, as the op-ed demands, be called to account. And so too must the USA government's campaign against its Jewish citizens. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The lawsuit is an example of the lawfare that Mohammedans are waging, particularly in Canada. The suit is vexatious as Canadian couts do not have universal jurisdiction and Israel is not contravbening any law, much less commiting a war crime. If construction is taking place, it is on land to which the Arabs have no title otherwise Israeli courts would order the work to stop. There never was and still isn't such a polity as Palestine, the land is in dispute and may well end up inside Israel. Land does not become "Palestinian" merely on the claim of Mohammedans, irrespective of what Hussein Obama declares. The Geneva Conventions do not apply because, Israel is not transferring anyone - settlers move voluntatily, Palestine is a fabrication so it is not occupied territory as say Poland was and "Palestine" is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, so it cannot seek relief under its provisions. As usual, the Palies are defective in morality and in law. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Clarification: by post war I meant after the Great War. Sorry. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 My only comment on the sniping between posters is: YAWN! The Nazis described themselves as socialists and did indeed have socialistic policies, but they supported the status quo, the use of private manufacturing and in turn were funded by the capitalists who benfitted from state contracts. Communists nationalised everything and created a command economy. The Hungarian "Nyilasok"/Nyilas Keresztes (Arrow Cross) gang sided with the church, manufacturers and land holders; they were fascists like their German counterparts. At present the Jobbik party is a play on words: Jobb is both better and right; Jobbik is unequivocally "better". It is a right wing fascist group in the worst tradition of antisemitic Hungarians who regard anyone who is not Christian and non-Hungarian. We must not forget that Hungary introduced anti-Jewish legislation before Germany, after the Kun Béla post-wat Communist revolt was crushed. (Kun by the way was Jewish) 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I didn't know that Mubarak had a sens of humour. He surely cannot be serious about Israel retreating to the '48 ceasefire lines [BORDERS THEY ARE NOT] and then pleasing the (Arab) "refugees". Does anyone seriouly expect Iran's proxy, Syria, to agree and for Lebanon to rein in Hizballah? And what nonsense that if Israel makes peace with the "Palestinians", them it will make peace with the Arabs? Peace with Arab Egypt and Jordan did no produce peace between Israel and the Palies. For the world to press Israel to walk into the Arab salami slicer is to create a problem for itself: aggressor nations will have established a precedent for penalty free defeats in wars they started. Israel has a right to compensation and the Arabs must acknowledge guilt and the penalty they will need to pay. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Forgive me if I interrupt a school-yard spat between posters, but I do see in front of me the AJWS concern that Rice called the situation in Darfur genocide, while Scott described the current slaughter as the uncoordinated remnants of a genocide. Messinger's message is apposite: no administration can run two lines. More to the point is that an indicted war criminal is still Sudan's head of state and that sadistic jihadi has expelled groups that could help a population in distress and in face of miserable and avoidable deaths. And the administration that lays the law down to democratic Israel cannot even whisper an unequivocal attitude to the vile islamofascists in Khartoum. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Blair's operative words are Obama getting the right partners on the Israeli and Palestinian sides. As long as these diplomatic dead-heads keep pressing Israel without asking the Mohammedans to do anything but sit pretty on their uncompromising absolutist demands, while the USA bullies Jews into commiting national suicide, there won't be peace. A better question to ask is:with Obama and Blair, have the Israelis and the Arabs the right facilitators in the process that in Oslo was predicated on peace? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Ari, Lawrenc's outburst might be a tad emotional, but the point that an Arab/Irish person who had some success at the fag end of the Irish dispute is rationally applying his diplomacy to a situation that is completely different cannot be dismissed. The fact that the world is generally hostile to Israel, does not make that attitude either correct or justified. Whether you find the anti-Americanism distasteful and unwarranted is irrelevant. The fact is that imperial USA trumpets supports democracy at home and dictatorships abroad. Its current bullying of Israel exposes it to be the hypocrite that it has too often been. The Ugly American soubriquet has been well earned by the USA - witness its standing in South America. Don't protest America's image on this website; write to your Congressman. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 One cannot take the Red Cross seriously. Shalit was kidnapped (not captured) three years ago to be used as a hostage to exchange for terrorists tried and jailed by Israel. That action by Hams was in contravention of Geneva Conventions. For two years the Red Cross made no public demand to visit him and it failed to protest when at a rally an actor played him crying for his mother. The sadistic lawless Hamas terrorist failed to exchange him in accordance with the Geneva Conventions during the truce they declared before Operation Cast Lead. The statement the Red Cross makes now exposes it to be spineless and utterly ineffectual when it comes to Mohammedan aggression against Jews. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Er, guys. The topic under discussion - if one looks at the item - is Clinton's bullying of Israel. It is not the relative merits of USA administrations. Let me remind you that there is a big, big world outside the USA. In my letter to the Australian Jewish News I pointed out that: 1. if the USA can disregard understandings and agreements with Israel, then all agreements with the USA are worthless 2. Cessation of "natural growth" echoes the Nazi sterilisation program. People living there candie out or move out 3. Stopping settlement means that Arab claims to Judea and Samaria are accepted and rulings and agreements, like UNSC 242 with its call for negotiations are treated with the same contempt as the democratic decisions of the Israeli electorate. Clinton's pseudo-legalistic spurious argument that the understandings were not really undestanding are risible. They have been in the public domain for years and Israel justified its actions on the basis of those. No honest person of nation would all of a sudden come up with the childish excuse to renege on understandings by lying that the proper legalities had not been observed. They were, but Clinton and Obama choose to be blind now. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I am sorry Ari, but as a Jew, the limit of Christian charity that I am prepared to extend stops at the point where th victim's suffering is self inflicted. Apart from your injection of Arab propaganda - that the Arabs were expelled - the simple fact is that, in the majority, they allowed themselves to be manipulated into leaving (you cannot quote me any massacre to impel flight) and then they sat around quielty on world welfare instead of forming state structures. Not only is the "Nakba" of their own making, but through their manifold bastardries over the decades they have forfeited any claim to sympathy or compensation. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 We all knew that Israel and the USA had an "understanding" on settlements. For Obama or his various mouthpieces to disregard them on some specious legalistic construct show malice and duplicity. If the USA failed to make a clear statement on issues that were clearly in the public domain, it acquiesed to them. It is therefore dishonest and dishonourable to repudiate those understandings. And the whole world will take note of the value of the USA's word under Obama's rule. Shame on him! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The harrassment and iintimidation of Jewish students at York university is horrifying and disgusting. The point of course is that no student of any background can be allowed to be mistreated on any campus. That there are any students at a university who arrogate the right to harrass, intimidate and silence their fellow students, flies against the spirit of learning and the exchange of ideas. For staff to use their classes as soap boxes from which to proclaim their political views is unprofessional and anti-intellectual. University administrators who permit such activities are derelict in their duties to create an environment where free exchange of ideas and learning can take place. Clearly York Uni is rotten from top to bottom and must be cleared up through protests, legal actions or Will Edwards' wish becoming reality. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The Arab threat to resume violence must not be dismissed as mere noise. It underscores their further repudiation of the Oslo Accords, specifically their solemn undertaking to resolve disputes peacefully. Netanyahu's spokesman, Regev, said that neither side's stated position is acceptable to the other, but that negotiations should preceed. The Arabs are making talks subject to Israelis accepting their preconditions. Those are the tactics of a victor demanding unconditional surrender. The Palestinians are niether sincere nor rational, particularly as Hamas is contained and Fatah is nominally in charge only through Israeli support. Those slow learners should have it spelled out to them simply and slowly, that the more they make unreasonable, uncompromising demands, the less they will eventually get. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Ari H tells us that he is embarrassed by lobby groups influencing sentences. I consider Ari H and his ilk an embarrassment to Jewry and people who believe in giving others a fair go. One should not be blinded to the fact that there is a preponderence of investigations concerning Jews. Only the wilfully blind would think everything is koshe. The fact that Franklin got trapped for doing what any government officer in DC does and then was used to entrap two AIPAC staffers under a misapplied 1918 law, should have led to the indictment being thrown out. That a engineer was charged 24 year after he retired should have rung some alarm bells. Every time State wants to pressure Israel it whips up a scandal; perhaps Israel should kick out some US spooks for a change. The worst part of ti though is the utterly gutless attitude of USA Jewry which has abandoned Jonathan Pollard, the USA's own prisoner of Zion. Shame on the USA and shame on USA Jews who are so desparate to be more American than the Americans that they renounce their rights and freedoms. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I am heartily sick and tired of hochems prattling about "borders". Borders are internationally recognised and negotiated boundaries of nation states. The '48 cease-fire lines are just that. The Arabs need to negotiate with Israel where the division of their territory and Israel's will be. Hussein Obama is pandering to the Arabs by declaring the cease-fire lines as borders in complete contravention of UNSC 242. As for the euphemism of cessation of "natural growth" it is nothing short of the Nazi sterilation program. It means that Jews in judenrein "Palestine" can die out of move out. The duplicituos US attitude to Israel also indicates that no nation can ever trust the US again. A major problem is that imperial USA is not making a mistake for the first time. In imposing a regime like Fatah , it is repeating its errors in Viet Nam, Taiwan and sundry little South American states. It is well on its way to again earning the contempt of any person for whom the much touted USA ideals of justice and democracy are important. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The Christian catharsis through accepting guilt and then self flaggelation is evident in some of the ignorant posts above. I recalled the incident and google confirmed my memory. Braude was attacked by Arabs, bashed with a rock needing 36 stitches, his jaw was broken while biting the attacking Arab and he then wounded two of them in self defense. The cops made an exeplary prosecution to teach "settlers" not to use their arms. Shame on the Israel cops and all of you bigoted and lazy commentators. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I congratulate Ari for finally making it cryatal clear that he lives in a parallel universe - one of the Alice in Wonderland variety. The assertion that people regarding the USA as pro-Arab and antisemitic is a straw man. Anyone who follows the polls knows that the majority favour Israel over the Arabs at the same time that the "intelligensia" in academe is grossly prejudiced against Israel. It also is aware that there is a large segment of Jews who have abandoned concepts of justice to try to be more WASPish than the Yanks to ease their way into the Christian mileau in which the find their ease. The simple fact Ari is this. Peace in Ireland came about after the terrorists were beaten. This is something that the international community forbids Israel to do and the current regime in Washington is trying to compel Israel to commit national suicide, give the Arabs averything they demand in return for no concession whatsoever. The idiots who run that line are betraying democracy and their won best interests by reinforcing jihadists. Noone with half a brain would describe Rahm Emmanuel as pro-Israeli; he is a post-Zionist bully boy who has sold out his fellow Jews to feather his nest in the comfort of the good old USA. And Hilary Clinton is a lying opportunist who sucks up to Jews by stating friendship to Israel on one side of her mouth while kissing Suha Arafat who accused Israel of poisoning water, on the other side of her mouth. I suggest that Ari and others of his ilk who attempt to distort reality by substituting polemics for facts go to some other site like Counterpunch. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I am not quite sure what Ari understands by a pull-out. I don't think he knows either. When a nation removes all of its citizens and military from a piece of disputed land and hands it over to an entity which is not yet self governing, rational people would call those actions a pull out, except of course, if such steps were taken by Jews. It is malicious sophistry to assert that just because leaving Gaza led to increased attacks on Israel, those actions should not be regarded as an impediment to a two state solution. Two states? Three states? The Fatah and Hamas bastards cannot even make peace with each other, their main differences being over dominance with its access to international funds for buying support and the best tactics to destroy Israel and create an Islamist regime. Bibi needs to be tactful and polite, but at the same time he needs to tell the dumb dog Hussein Obama that a regime which talks loudly and carries no stick when it comes to Iran and North Korea should muzzle itself instead of barking contempt at the democratic choice of Jews in the front line against jihad. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Sorry Ari, but if the man "does believe in Christ", it is not a case of "what can you do", but what Taylor must do if he really wants to become a Jew. Apart from renouncing Christianity, Taylor needs to accept Rabeinu Gershom's takkanot regarding polygamy and he needs to genuinely repent for the multiple mutilations, murders, rapes, tortures and thefts he organised when in power in Liberia. The question of Taylor's conversion does have its serious side. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Just who the hell does that Chicago motot mouth think he is? Hussein Obama has done all the talking that a humble apologist for the West could do in Cairo and earned the well deserved contempt of the Arabs who saw through him. He wants Israel and the "Palestinians" to talk? What about? Israel's national suicide? And on what terms? Hamas' or Fatah's, the latter kept in power through Israeli arms. Denying Israel's Jewishness is not only antisemitic in denying Jews the right of self-determination, but giving in to enemies of the USA who celbrated the deaths of 9/11 and exist only to deny Jews the right they demand for themselves. The guy'sdreaming and he needs to be told that there is a difference to lying your way to the White House and destroying a democracy. His understanding of history would be improved if someone did him the favour of explaining what the term "sold down the river" meant. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 For a change I largely argree with Will Edwards. I would suggest though that a cheaper, shorter, more targetted variant would do. Bomb the known sites, the oil pumping stations, storages, power plants, ports and pipes, plus the Revolutionary Guards bases and any known military industrial complexes. At the same time call on the Iranians to rise up against the repressive, loathed and corrupt theocrats, while arming the oppressed minorities of Iran. The campaign would be shorter than three months, it would result in regime change and even possibly win a friend for the West in the Muslim world. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Further to my post at 10:42. I just came across a blog on sightandsound, where a translation of a German blogger revealed that the "UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution that will prevent an investigation into the alleged war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army against the Tamil Tigers...a double crime took place...Tigers barricaded themselvesito refugee camps using civilians as shields and troops, according to journalists and NGOs, fired at them mercilessly" LIzas Welt contrasts the slaughter and the media silence with the media outrage against Israel's war in Gaza where the casualty numbers were much smaller, the Israeli response was against rocket fire and the Sri Lankan attacks were against civilians. This underscores my previous point. Israel should not cooperate when the world's moral guardians ignore human rights violations in all cases except when it comes to Israel, where violations are magnified and fabricated. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Sorry Fleshler, your apologia is utterly nauseating. You are a fake Zionist interested in nothing more than in ingratiating yourself to your left liberal identity group and making your life in the USA more comfortable; you would have made an excellent kapo in Nazi concentration camps. Your whine that you suffer because you do not openly condemn everything Israeli as evil is contemptible; you lack the guts to call your detractors antisemites. You are also delusional; neither the USA nor any other self important entity can think of itself as a mediator. If anything, the USA can be a facilitator if the parties are willing to talk - so far the Arabs have rejected all offers. You reveal your bias and ignorance when you apologise for the Arabs in stating that they cannot make peace with a powerful nation state. Rubbish! Beating the Germans and the Japanese brought peace and so did beating the Serbs. But you and your ilk cannot abide the Jew as a victor. And your precious country makes sure that Israel cannot ever win. You did it in '56 by ordering Israel to withdraw, in '73 when you stopped Israel from capturing Egypt's 2nd Army and in '82 when you provided safe passage for Arafat from Beirut. More than that, your talk of even handedness is moral equivalence at its worst. Israel, which has adhered to all its undertakings, shown generosity and taken great risks for peace, cannot be compared on any measure with the "Palestinians" who have broken every written undertaking they ever signed. They are driven not by a desire for statehood, but by their religion which demands the subjugation and humiliation of Jews. There is no occupation and assertions that Israel is on Palestinian lands simply is a biased stance which removes the need for the Arabs to behave in a civilised manner, to negotiate and to confront reality. Last but not least, I doubt your Jewish commitment and those of your ilk. Judaism's main tenet is justice and you are taking the side of the evil doers. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I do not believe that firstly Israel has not taken chances for peace or that non-Israelis should tell Israel to be courageous and take risks, when previous risks and concessions have back-fired. The risk is Iran. The problem is radical Islam. If posters cannot get that into the wide open spaces between their ears, they should actually read the item with comprehension or better still try to respond to facts rather than the resonances of their own conceits about their wisdom. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 When the UN is not investigating Russia re Chechnia, China re Tibet, Burma re Rohigas, Sri Lanka re Tamils or Sudan seriously or in the past because of the Islamist war against the Christian and animists in its south, then Israel has every reason to not cooperate with a South African anti-Zionist Jew looking into an over-documented defensive war in which its terrorist enemy which was shown to break numerous laws of war. Gladstone gives the game away by expressing amazement at the damage in Gaza; it echoes Larsen's comment about the smell of death in Jenin. Israel must treat with contempt mock investigations which seek minor incidents to magnify and distort and lies to support the conclusions they have already reached. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Isn't Bosnia-Herzegovina that former Yugoslavian state on whose behalf NATO bombed Serbia into submission and made it independent? Isn't it the one where Serbia's surrender was dictated by Richard Holbrook? Oh, they wrote a Mohammedan supremicist constitution? How careless of NATO!! How typical of radical Islam, even in the civilised Balkans. And some want to impose a one state solution on Israel. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 It might be a good idea if posters learned to read. The JTA item mischievously states that "The army describes the protests as violent, but video released after a protest two months ago showed an Israeli soldier firing a tear gas canister directly at peaceful protesters;...". There is no independent report if the protest was violent or peaceful. If it was violent the use of lethal force was justified. The inferrence that the protest was peaceful because a video of an incident two months ago showed wanton violence is a scurrilous smear. The report is most unprofessional! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Hey guys, has it ever entered your minds that comments would be more appropriate about the articles than your own little partisan politics. It may surprise you, but there is a world outside the good old US of A. The important thing is that the Hungarian government is doing something about the rise of antisemitic fascism in Hungary. My cousins still living there inform me that complaints about defamatory comments have been been dismissed by the courts, which ruled that all comment, except incitement to violence, was permissible under the freedom of speech rubric. Holocaust denial is as inciteful as the German lie of the Jewish "stab in the back", the more so in a country which had antisemitic laws before Germany and eagerly participated in murdering Jews under Szálasi. Whether the legislation is inspired by a sense of decency, or to keep up appearances in the EU is uncertain. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The VTOL f-35 with a rotor as a gut is a waste of weight and space. If the USA wants Israel to by a second rate under-performing dud with cost over-runs and then not give it access to its computers, Israel would be better off building its own air frames and avionics. Israel should have started budgeting for that eventuality when the f-22 sale was blocked. Had the USA sold Raptors to Israel and Australia, the unit cost of those would have come down and the projected fleer built. So much for USA promises to give Israel a military edge. Some friend! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Qureia conditions the renewal of peace negotiations on the cessation of settlement activities including those due to natural growth. Now if the "settlements" become a part of a future Palistan, why should natural expansion by future Palistanians cease? Clearly, what Qureia is barking is that Jews will be allowed to die out in Palistan, which just goes to show that you must always prepare to be bitten, even when the Paly dog wags its tail. Apart from that, Qureia, ignores Arafat's letter to Rabin in which the Palies promised to resolve differences peacefully and to cease incitement. Israel's "peace partners" need to be put into training kennels until they learn not to demand unconditional surrender from their masters, on whom they depend for their survival. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Hey, how's that for a democracic nation at peace with Israel!? As very few Egyptians could read Portuguese pro-Israeli material could not influence them. In most nations, customs confiscates forbidden items, but does not arrest people as though they were smugglers of drugs of arms bound for Gaza. Pro-Israeli material can only pose a threat to a country that openly sells the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Truly here we have an example of freedom of though, Egyptian style. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 That 40% of Israeli Arabs deny the reality of the Shoah can be laid at the feet of post-Zionists like Yuli Tamir who think that history is merely narrative and allowed a segment of its citizenry to be taught malicious lies. The Nazi's extermination program was ended by the Allies, Steve, and that is why I am alive and responding to your verbose ranting. The memory of those times lives in me and my children and that it has been too soon forgotten is evidenced by the Rwandan, Cambodian and Darfuri massacres. The memory of the Shoah lives on in every Jew and the tragedy of it is relived whenever our fellow creatures bleed, starve, are brutalised and die a savage death. Unlike the "Palestinians", we Jews do not celebrate the pain and death of our enemies. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 If those Arabs who regard the creation of the state which tolerates their tax evasion, water theft and illegal building and land sezures and subsidises their oversized families, despite their refusal to do national service of any kind as a disaster, then they should exercise their UN guaranteed right to emigrate. Now as regards stupid antisemitic comments by one david hicks. Is that the same Hicks who converted to Islam, wrote antisemitic letters to his father, faught for al-Qaeda, was caught in Afghanistan and incarcerated in Camp Liberty in Guantanamo, completed the last 9 months of his sentence in Australia? Is that same person continuing his jihad activities now that he is free? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Apart from the fact that USA foreign policy is a series of failures, the only urgent matter is for the USA executive, State and Defense to take long cold showers. The only parties that need to talk are the Israelis and the local Arabs who have given themselves the brand name of "Palestinians". The ambassadors need to improve their English; if the USA wants to stick its beak into talks its role is to FACILITATE not to MEDIATE. Considering that the USA has no more control over Hamas' arms smuggling than is has over the rearming of Hizbollah, this aspiration is just so much hot air. A halt in costruction in Judea and Samaria before the the establishment of Palistan is in fact establishing Arab facts on the ground. NOt demolishing buildings illegally built also establishes Arab facts on the ground and interferes with internal Israeli matters demanding that a sovereign country not enforce its laws. Gaza must not be reconstructed or assisted while its freely chosen regime vows to destroy Israel, its neighbor; it is as stupid as it is perverse to ask Israel to give any more than basic humanitarian assistance to an armed jihadi gangland dedicated to its destruction. Lastly, the Arab Peace Initiative in its amended form calls for the return of Arabs and their descendents to Israel, so it is a non-starter. Moreover, since Israel's putative peace partners refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state, there is no basis for negotiations. For of the five conditions put pressure on Israel. The USA should lean on the Arabs for a change, even if it means paying a little more for the precious Mohammedan oil. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Orwell's observation:"...it is so stupid that it could only have been made by an intellectual" applies to Prof Liebowitz's obscenity of "judeo-nazis". Blaming the Israel/Arab situation on "settlements" is ignorant, hysterical and utterly ahistorical. The Arabs faught against Israel long before '67 or even '48, when there were no "settlements". Anyone but a rabid anti-Zionist (antisemite??) would know that Israel stole no land; all land Israel holds were obtained through purchase or in beating an aggressor. As for Dayton's plan: it stinks. If the good USA general needs $130m to train 1500 Palies then the cost per paramilitary cop works out at $86666.67. Is Dayton using that money to provide each Paly with a gold plated M-16, a humvee and a bat-man, or is some of that bribe money? What plan has the brilliant USA military to ensure that the Paly force will not turn on Israel when Abu Mazen resumes "resistance" (terror), that it will be any more willing to fight Hamas than USA trained PA gunmen in Gaza or if it will not turn out to be another USA trained and armed group, the Talibaan. Everyone should butt out and let Israel and the Arabs (when they have no one to save them from their several follies and come to their sensed) work things out. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Qanni Leyhn's post above is identical to her(?) post in response to the AJN article ablout AIJAC. Her post there was inappropriate and it is more so here. Is she real or some computer generated hate sprayer? Regardless of Leyhn, a point missed out and one that could endanger your 1st amendment, is that any official with access to even minor secrets could divulge some to anyone in an entrapment exercise. Clearly the law was deliberately misapplied, obviously having been intended for government employees sworn to secrecy. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Two comments: 1. J Street, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom are deceitful in claiming to be pro-Israel. They are a group of assimilationist cowards only too happy to sell out a fellow democracy for no other reason than to gain acceptance by their left wing identity groups which idealise one of the most digusting societies on earth, the so-called Palestiians. 2. Leyhn accuses Jews of disloyalty to America (USA?) and justifies the rise antisemitism. Since Leyhn ignores Saudi funded CAIR or Arab lobby groups in the USA, the Irish funding of the IRA or Italians who are eligible to vote and become parliamentarians it is safe to conclude that she is an anti-semite, who really has no need to refer to Jewish lobby groups to justify her bigotry. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Oh how gratifying that a donkey was "redeemed", because the Chasidic donkeys who blew $7500 in a contrived mitzvah are beyond redemption. Some mitzvahs are way out of date, particularly agrarian ones by urban communities. The $7500 should have been spent in ways that assist people or on some tikkun olam associated project. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Just as a point of interest, Mashaal is NOT offering a truce, which we understand to be a step toward peace. Mashaal is offering a hudna, the Mohammedan interruption of fighting. The maximum period that a hudna can last is ten years and the enemy must agree to all terms set by Mohammedans and they in turn are free to resume fighting if they feel the enemy which has accepted their terms, has violated it in any way. That violation can include insufficient submissiveness. Mashaal should be told to stick his hudna where his mother never kissed him. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Since the Lebanese have not fulfilled their part of UNSC 1701, Israel would be completely stupid to withdraw an inch from any territory it holds. Any unilateral withdrawal would only embolden Hizballah terrorists who would take it as a sign of Israeli lack of resolve and then demand more, like the Shebaa Farms. Netanyahu must resist Obama's outreach to his Muslim brothers. Hussein Obama's outstretched hand to the Muslim world brings to mind the 1939 cartoon where Hitler shakes the hand of Stalin over the corpse of Poland. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Israel is derelict for not having commenced a judicial inquiry into Spanish human rights abuses in beating Morrocan refugees trying to get over the 8 m high double fence erected at Cueta. Israel should also try some of the Francoists and call Spain to account for sheltering the terrorist groups which showed their gratitude by blowing up trains and massacring 200 Spaniards in Madrid. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The UN's so-called Humanitarian Affairs branch, is a usual, playing politics and exhibiting hypocrisy. Many of the houses belong to people who moved to be on the Israeli side of the separation barrier according to reports we got here in Australia. Regardless of where they came, they erected structures illegally and Israel has a responsibility to demolish those. The demolitions are an internal affair of Israel and not the business of the UN! To put it into context, it needs to be noted that the UN was completely shtum when Jews were evicted from Gaza, when they were evicted from a house they own in Hebron and when "settlers" are evicted from "illegal" settlements. Who shows mercy to Jews? Arabs buiding illegally must not be shown "mercy" and Israel must not be pressured to overlook transgressions, just because the transgressors are not Jewish. The sovereign state of Israel must be cogratulated for at long last, enforcing its laws. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The Arabist State Dept. takes the PA whines as fact. Israel is the nation under threat and only its judgement is pertinent. The PASF may be cooperating, but if the PA in Judea and Samaria links up with Hamas, the PASF could turn on Israel in a second. The PA and State all know this but they are pressuring Israel as though the PA had suddenly become a force of a democratically elected accountable government. State should be pressuring Iran and its allies rather than the Middle East's only democracy and the USA's only true friend in the region. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 J Street's web site shows only articles critical of Israel and stands for pressuring Israel to make concessions to an enemy bent on its destruction. For J Street to masquarade as pro-Israeli, is sheer chutzpah and deceit. J Street is entitiled to its denial of reality, but rational people are obliged to remind them of Einstein's definition of stupidity: repeating a failed experiment and expecting a different outcome. Negotiations have been going on for years and the Iranians are just laughing at the fools who ignore what they themselves have openly admitted: they have a two track policy of pretending to negotiate while at the same time carrying on with war plans behind closed doors. Obama is naive and J Street is playing with the lives of Israells and the security of the West. It is best to ignore J Street and others of its ilk who would still be shrieking "negotiate" as planes struck their building in a repeat of 9/11. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Hoo-OOORAY!!!, an Israeli government that takes pride in itself and stands up in support of its vital interests against the bullying of cringeing appeasement heroes, who have abandoned the values that made the West the ideal of our current world's societies. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 1. I can understand Arkady perfectly well. He is decrying Jewish inactivity in the face af antisemitic activity, even in a place where there is a significant Jewish minority. 2. Haim is an alternate spelling of Chaim. Hymie as in "Hymie-town" is an antisemitic insult used by a Black man of God who clearly, by virtue of his calling and race could not be called a racist bigot. Or could he by the non-politically correct. 3. Just because a person does not write English like someone whose first language is English, does not mean that he cannot think or that he should remain silent. In fact only an ignoramus criticises a person's expression rather than his concepts. 4. Of late I have been distressed by a few posters who use this site to criticise other posters, while at the same time failing to address the item that had been commented upon. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Hilary must be hallucinating if she discerns a linkage between a "Palistan" and Arab support for peace. The Sunni Arabs worry far more about Shi'ite Iran than about their Pally brothers; Egypt's closure of the border to Gaza shows that. In any case, Israel must make peace with the "Palestinians", not with all Arabs or all Muslims. And Israel cannot, will not and must not make peace with a couple of feuding entities who disagree only on dividing Western largess and the tactics to destroy Israel a nation they promised to be at peace with at Oslo. As long as Pally leaders demand Israel's unconditional surrender under fire, there will be no peace and anyone urging Israel to commit national suicide is no friend of Israel or of democracy and modernity. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Richard, I agree with your observation concerning Mr Edward's arguments. I would further note that Israeli Arabs attacking Israeli police with deadly force - Molotov cocktails - are acting outside all civilised norms, but then violence is the only Arab response to anything to which they object. The Arabs of Kfar Kassem were ont protesting about an issue in dispute, such as a barrier through a village. They were protesting about the enfocement of a law which they broke. They were acting as though it is their right, as Arabs, to dismiss with contempt laws of the Jewish state. They need to be taught two lessons: if need be, violence will be eliminated by the state's coercive powers and if they object to Israeli laws they can exercise their right, guaranteed by the UN, to leave their country. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Politicising the legal system will lead to a breakdown of international relations and trade. This madness or as some would call it, lawfare, at present is merely a nuisance, but taken to its logical limit, it will cripple democratic legal systems while at the same time giving the real villains immunity for their crimes. The system needs to be shown to be the hypocritical farce that it is by firstly, seeing if the court accepts the blatently false charges laid by Palies and secondly ,testing those courts to see how they respond to charges laid against Hanniya for the terror attacks on Sderot and the kidnapping of Shalit. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Clearly that 1% could be purchased elsewhere or manufactured in Israel. The review is the roar of a toothless lion. More importantly, is Milliband, the Jewish Brit brat planning to review contracts for equipment that ends up in the hands of Hamas, Hizballah, the Sudanese genocide masters or in Iran's oil or nuclear industries? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 One presumes that Mashaal will go to England to talk to MPs. Since the Brits accept individuals laying charges for war crimes against IDF commanders, would it not, in turn, be appropriate for some UK Jew to charge Mashaal for crimes against humanity and for orchestrating, funding and authorising acts of terror? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Mitchell and the State Dept. can huff and puff like the wolf, but that won't establish a Palestinian state until firstly the Pallies are prepared to be self-governing instead of terrorist, thugs, thieves and international shnorrers and secondly until they themselves accept a two state solution. As long as both Hamas and the PA refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state, the "two state solution" is a non-starter. Further, forcing Israel to stand aside while the Palies form a state before they are ready, sets that state up for failure which will not only threaten Israel but will need to be conquered to remove the jihadist threat from that area. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Anyone quoting Ilan Pappe as an authority must also believe in the truth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the realistic interpretations of history of Mein Kampf. As an Arab who was in Manddatory Palestine for a mere TWO YEARS(!!) is deemed to be a refugee by UNWRA, it is pure rubbish to speak of Arabs who have adopted a brand name of "Palestinians" for themselves in 1965 as "native", the more so as the British had been concerned about the iinflux of Arabs into the then Palestine before WW2. As regards dispossesion, the 20% of Israelis who are Arab give that claim the lie. The simple fact is that Jews lived in that area for millenia, there were waves of migration to escape persecution, the Jews became self governing while the Arabs remained tribal, the Jews succeeded in repeatedly repelling attackers, the Arabs rejected peace and still refuse to accept the right of Jews to self-determination. Ahmadinejad in a manner typical of fanatics, liars and racists inverts the truth. There can be no peace with people like that; they oppose all values of modernity and democracy. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The only thing J Street wants to support is how to mollify aggressive Mohammedans. To my chagrin as a progressive Jew, left leaning rabbis have in large measure left Judaism and are urging the Christian message - often preached but rarely practised - of unconditional fogiveness by Jews toward others, in this instance to remorseless, cruel and vengeful Mohammedans. J Street's involvement on campuses is to make themselves more acceptable to mainstream USA and to appease the enemies of the US, Israel and democracy, while at the same time pursuing their delusional humanitarianism. Their tough love extends no further than to their fellow Jews. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Rabbis for Human Rights feel it their duty to join machson watch and to help Arabs pick olives. Oh yes, they intend to detour to Sderot to talk to people about trauma. Their stated aim is to show a more humane face of Judaism. So clearly, they think that Jews defending themselves fail to be sufficiently humane against their aggressors. In calling for an "independent" investigation, they are inferring that since the IDF's investigation failed to find anything to substantiate the accusations made by the Arabic propaganda rag in Israel - Ha'artetz - that it was a white-wash and the hearsay must somehow be shown to have some basis. In the eyes of these "rabbis", not only are the IDF fighters guilty of war crimes, but the IDF investigators are liars. They are trying to put the whole IDF on trial and since the IDF is a people's army, to put Israel on trial. These "rabbis" feel that all are guilty and all must atone, an argument more proto-Chriatian than Jewish. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 So Wood said the USA is committed to the Annapolis process. Bully for Wood and the USA., let them make a deal with the "Palestinians". The "Road Map" was performance based for good reason and it is sheer malevolent perversity to coerce Israel to accept a Palistan which, far from as much as accepting Israel's right to exist, is dedicated to its destruction through violence. Hamas openly states that Israel's destruction is its goal and the PA states that too is in goal but in Arabic only, purely to get its beggar's bowl filled. The USA and the EU really need to keep in mind the selling out of Czechoslovakia by Chamberlain. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The worst aspect of the blood libels fabricated at the pre-military academy and disseminated by Ha'aretz is that there are no repercussions for their lies. In any nation apart from Israel, there would be a military censor restricting news during a war, but war is an ongoing process for the Jewish state. What democracies need to do though is to rigourously protect free speech and to reward whistle blowers while at the same time imposing severe penalties on people and media sources that deliberately, perversely and unapologetically lie. Neither individuals, organisations (or religions) nor states can be allowed to hide their misdeeds behind some odd privacy provisions, but they should not get away scot free if they maliciously hurt others. Despite some post-modern clap-trap, there is such a thing as truth. And in truth, Ha'aretz should be compelled to publish a retraction and then shut down for a time, while the pre-military academy should be banned; academies are for broadening the mind, not for indoctrination. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Of rather more importance than the antisemitic ravings of a Brazilian archbishop is the silence on his comments by the Vatican and by the Pope. It is stupid to say that more Catholics died, or that Catholics were next for extermination. Catholics were not slated for extermination for their religion; they died as a result of the war started by the German's Catholic Fuhrer, who was not excommunicated for his multiple sins against humans. Poles were not killed because of their religion, but because they resisted the Nazis or some of whom were thought to be a threat from a race the Nazis considered inferior and meant to serve the Germans in the furture. Romanies were slated for extermination, but that branch of Nazi ideology was not carried out either as systematically or as sadistically as was the war against Jews. Now for Anthony Weston. Anthony, your ideas are so far removed from historical facts and rationality that no thinking decent person would take your falsehoods and maliciously constructed "facts" as anythiing but a reflection of the distorted, hating and hateful reality of youself and those of your ilk. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Trying to run down police officers is completely wrong and deserves the strongest condemnation. The thought that goes through my mind though is this: how come that stone throwing Jews get arrested when Arab rioters who actually injured 14 policemen in Umm el-Fahm are not so much as cautioned? Are all Israeli citizens equal or are some more equal than others? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The 3000 housing units would indeed create facts on the ground, but if I recall facts correctly, the land is owned by Israel. Even if, by some chance, I am wrong, the land is still not "Palestinian", because there never was a nation of Palistan. For the USA, or any entity, to demand that Israel not construct on the E1 corridor, is to declare that land to be in dispute and creates an Arab claim to it. Supporting such a claim rewards terror and duplicity. It is also hyocritical as Jewish claims to Hebron, say, are rejected by the world community, which backs the proto-Palistan that rejects Israel as a Jewish state from one side of its mouth, while from the other side, it talks - in English only - about a two state resolution of the conflict which it perpetuates. Israel must stand firm and tell the "peace-makers" where to get off. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 So, the loquacious, unsagacious snake oil salesman who is a squatter in the oval office ,declares that a solution to the Arab-Israeli situation is "critical". Critical to whom? The situation could have been solved decades ago but for the Mohammedan rejection of a Jewish state in "their" domain. The conflict could have been solved decades ago if meddlers had not warehoused Arabs to use against Israel and if powers not competing to show their greatness had not repeatedly saved the Pallies from their folly, partly by forcing Israel to stay its hand in dealing with Arab terror, deceit, arrogance and associated aggression. Butt out Barrack! 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Smelling a rat, I googled PHR-I. I found that it was formed in 1994 by Palestinian and Israeli medicos and due to its biased politics, the Israel Medical Association has severed ties with it. The PHR-I group is foreign funded in large part and is prone to condemning Israel without breathing a word about the terrorism it is confronting. In the article above, criticising Israel for not treating enemy civilians during combat and of attacking ambulances, when there was clear evidence of their use in violation of the Geneva Conventions, makes PHR-I an anti-Israel propaganda outfit, whose comments should be treated with utter contempt. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Ah, so the charges are that "soldiers fired too hastily on civilians and indiscriminately destroyed Palestinian property." Now who is to state what, during a battle is too hasty? Are IDF corpses needed to justify firing? More to the point is why "civilians" failed to take cover when soldiers approached. Again, which rear echelon chair commander is to decide if some propery was destroyed for good reason or bad? Sure, some IDF guys might have been hasty, or fearful, or heaven forbid, even angry, but it is worth bearing in mind that front line soldiers were not a pack of boy scouts on a picnic through a nature reserve. A minor matter of Arab exaggeration also needs to be considered. Nothing alluded to in the report amounts to a war crime. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 What the pleasantries between the various posters seem to overlook is that in a democracy no group can exclude another from a public space; Israel's Supreme Court seems to have this view. On another matter, to refer to any Jewish action as Nazilike is the foulest obscenity that a sick mind could produce; that a Jew should make such a comment about another Jew arouses a feelings of nausea in me. Both cases comparing Jews to Nazi demonstarions, apart from their foulness, are wayu off the mark. In Germany Nazis used marches to intimidate and assualt their enemies. In Skokie, Nazis marched to cause offense and to intimidate. Jews going to Umm al-Fahm go to demonstrate that Jews are free to go anywhere in Israel,or conversely, that Arab citizens of Israel are not entitled to declare any portion of their nation as a Jew-free zone. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Very good of the murderous son of a murderous father to lament that the "peace" deal - contravening Knesset legislation -made with a failed and hated Israeli PM acting illegally, had slipped away. Pity that the '67 border demanded by Syria is now more inside Israel. Too bad for Assad that the new Israeli government, if it follows the wishes of the israeli electorate, will give him nothing jin return for only his word, which is, of course, worth nothing. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Name-calling "...Klein is a right wing extremist..." or appealing to patriotism, the refuge of the scoundrel, misses the issue: Hilary changes her stand on issues more quickly than most people change their undies, just like her boss. The folk who demand that Israel adhere to its "road map" obligations - sans the 14 caveats - while making no demands on the Arabs must be regarded as enemies of not only Israel, but of their own Western civilisation. Sure, Israel would be the first to suffer through giving in to Arabs intransigence and terror, but by doing so, it would encourage the world-wide jihadi movement in its attacks on democracies. The Hilary and Hussein team are not only duplicitous and opportunistic, but naive fools. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Bibi's position is pragmatic and the Israeli swing to the "right" confirms that most Israelis do not see a Palestinian state as anything more than a mantra. For too long Israeli leaders have been paying lip service to the various meddlers who want to push israel into a suicide pact to advance their own national interests. Put simply, for the Arabs, maintaining a state of war is more important than establishing a state. Even the faction - the PA - internationally designated as "moderate" supports terror and refuses to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. The Arabs of Gaza, Judea and Samaria can either join the 21st century or Israel needs to continue its tutelage of the fanatical savages who reside in those terrotories. Any talk of Israel having to choose between democracy and demographic annihilation is talking nonsense! Australia was (and remains) a democracy when it controlled New Guinea; it gave that territory independence when the people there developed to the point of being able togovern themselves. The Arabs and meddlers need to be told that until the Arabs abandon the war path, Israel will exercise the responsibilities of a colonial power to stop a future Palestine from becoming not only a failed state - as most colonies became - but a terror launching region for Islamofascists. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Years ago I joined a Reform shul in Sydney. Now the shul has started turning toward orthodoxy, but at the same time it considers homosexual marriages (not recognised by national legislation) to be acceptable. One "progressive" rabbi in Sydney is a Zionist, while the other invites Jeff Halper to speak. Reform is so confused it ought to be renamed Deformed Judaism. Activist (loony left) rabbis should consider a career in politics instead of making stupid noises in support of the enemies of the religion they are ordained to uphold. The real danger, apart from jeopardising Israel, is that if they interfere in politics, diaspora politicians may find a reason to interfere with Judaism, and that is precisely what Reform is Israel is trying to stop. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Is Leslie Susser's article really an analysis or is it a Purim joke? Who in their right mind would would consider giving away a strategic plateau in return for a much conditioned hint at peace? A hint form a nation with a track record of deceit and aggression, that is being kept afloat by Iran, which has vowed to destroy Israel. What sort of "friends" does Israel really have who demand that Israel should endanger its security for nothing more than that a gamble based on Israeli concessions will facilitate their plans, not Syria's or even of Israel's? Why should Israel give the Golan to Syria, which lost it in not one, but two acts of aggression? Why can Syria give away the Alexandretta region to the invading Turks, but demand that in return for nothing more than condescending to consider not peace, but non-war, Israel is to retreat to the shores of a much receded Kinneret? And why, when Israel has held the Golan for a longer period than Syria had it, should Israel return a territory that the British mandatory power illegally transferred to the French in 1923? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Would someone - anyone - please, PLEASE tell me with whom Israel is supposed to make peace? And if anyone can tell me, would she or he be kind enough to inform Hilary? 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 What an absolute chutzpah!! It is diplomatically improper for a country to comment on the internal affairs of another country, the more so when an issue in dipute has been judicially reviewed. The USA is treating Israel as a dependancy and pretending it has no jurisdiction within its boudaries. It also presumes that the land in question is in dispute, ignoring that it was illegally acquired in the first place. Clinton is aware of this and so is Olmert/Livni, but for the sake of Pax Americana they kowtow to an impudent and improper demand. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 When Martin Indyk was a lecturer in politics at Maquarie Universtity in Australia, he was a sensible, Zionistic man. Since going to the USA, he has worked for the State Dept and his views have gone awry, as he demonstated at a B'nai B'rith Oration in Sydney. He needs to be deprogramed. The settlements are not a problem. Indyk needs to be shaken from his delusion that acquiesing to Mohammedan demands will lead to peace, the more so when those demands are based neither in law nor in justice. The Mohammedans must pay a price for their terror and intransigence, if the civilised world, Israel in particular, is to avoid terrorism in the future. Jewish settlements will no longer be built if the Mohammedans make up their minds to build a state instead of dying to kill off another state. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Fareed Zakaria falsely states that Benny Morris "chronicled the forced expulsion of most Palestinians from the Jewish state in 1948..." Morris instead has documented that there was no pattern to Arab diplacement. It is fatuous to refer to Weizmann's comments about the Jews' treatment of its Arabs: those were different times and a different population, one that feared that its misbehaviour would draw on it the savagery that its Arab brothers diplayed to Jews. As regards, Leiberman, painting him in the colours of the devil, says nothing about him but a lot about the hate and hysteria of the rumour mongers. Lieberman is very sensibly demanding loyalty to Israel by non-Zionists both Jew and Arab and that is not too much ask of citizens by a nation at war. If the Arabs or the Haredi find doing national service, paying their taxes and swearing loyalty to their nation offends their principles, they are free to leave. He also makes very reasonable demands that conversion to Judaism be removed from ultra-conservative rabbis and for Israelis to be given the option of civil marriage. The nonsense against Israel Beiteinu and by, inference, the Israeli electorate must stop! This is only another aspect of the world's war on the Jewish state: if it does not comply with the world's view of how its democracy should function, it becomes worthy of destruction 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 No matter how insensitive the satirical program was, the Vatican displayed unforgivable cheek in making a "governmental" complaint, the more so after its reintroduction of the prayer for the conversion of Jews and its revoking of the excommunication of Williamson, a shoah denier. Satire is satire and free speech is a basic right in any democracy. A bit of humility, insight, understanding and Christian love and forgiveness toward the sinning satirist would not be out of place. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Firstly and most importantly, Shalit was not captured: he was kidnapped by a terrorist gang which violated Geneva conventions in doing so. The ADL is wrong in saying that Kouchner undermined Isaeli efforts to free Shalit. All Kouchner did was to demonstrate Hamas' contempt for civilised norms of behaviour, exposed the impotence of France and demonstrated that no matter how much appeasers grovel to Islamofascists, they get their noses rubbed in it. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The British academics protesting the Israeli scientific exhibition are to be congratulated on demonstrating their assiduous learning of the Nazi practice of ascribing Jewish contributions to humanity that they still needed to "persons unknown" and their attempts through their protest, to purify their "volk". 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Just yesterday, Anne Bayefsky of EYEontheUN, pointed out that the objective of Durban II is "to foster the imlementation of..." Durban I, which, inter alia is "the UN's reincarnation of 'Zioninsm is racism' ". Attending such a flawed hatefest is wrong for the USA, Australia and any democracy. In attending and accepting the legitimacy of Durban I and II, democracies sell out Israel, themselves and the future of all humans still under oppressive rule. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Mohammedan students have every right to voice their opinions. They have no right to break laws. They have no right to deny their opponents the freedoms they demand for themselves. They have no place at an instiution of learning if they behave like ignorant brutes. The university authorities should not be allowed to retain their positions if they fail to ensure that the institution enforces safe open debate. The police must not be allowed to merely give Jewish students safe conduct; they must arrest and charge lawbreakers and the university must expel any student convicted in a court of law. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 While NCJW's concern for cluster bombs is touching, until they can also express concern for homicide bombers, car/truck bombs, unguided missiles like the Qassems and civilians waging war from within civilian populations, they should concern themselves with making cucumber sandwiches and coffee. And, oh yes, NCJW might concern itself with the misery of the coffee growing peasantry. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Hamas is a terrorist gang using a traditional Mohammedan method - screaming religiousity - to sieze power. It has contempt for man-made laws and civilised standards of behaviour if they impede its drive to conquer. It does not need to let the Red Cross see Shalit, because that would be a humane act that would both comfort Jews and diminish its image of cruelty, a mark of honour in Mohammedan societies. Besides, the IRC is no friend of Israel and niether the USA or the EU is pressing it to live up to its mission. While Shalit's situation is undoubtedly tragic, we tend to overlook the equally tragic case of Pollard. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Israel already prosecutes members of the IDF who have committed war crimes, as other civilised nations do, so hauling IDF members before some foreign star chamber at the behest of complainants lacking probity on issues without merit, is both an insult to Israel and an attempt to intimidate its combatants. There should be no need for such a bill. A bill more in need is one which sues individuals and groups like UNWRA, Amnesty or B'tselem, which falsely accuse Israelis or which accuse them on the basis of deliberate misinterpretation of laws. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Sorry Weisbard, if you had read Tamarah's comment, she did not equate Muslims with terrorists, but without a doubt CAIR is a supporter of terrorists. Further, Tamarah has every right in a free society to call Muslims terrorists and her view is supported by the fact that the moderates are deathly shtum - someone said about HIV Silence = Acceptance; it applies equally to terror. And Farbank, get your facts right. Israel has provided the USA with mountains of intelligence on Soviet/Russian arms and means of combatting them. It has also given clues about urban combat to help your soldiers in Iraq. Finally, Israel has made much of your computer use possible with its inventions. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 I beg to differ from Marc Paige comments. If Paige recalls his history, Israel offered to withdraw from territories that came under its control in 1967 and was met by the Arabs': no negotiations, no recognition, no peace. The territories had no government having been under Egyptian and Jordanian occupation and in effect no polity had any claim to them. Judea and Samaria were part of lands declared open for Jewish settlement and in particular Gush Etzion was land siezed by Jordan. The Golan was not only given by the British to the French in violation of their mandate, but it had been used for nothing else except for aggression by the Syrians. Jews have a right to hold and settle any disputed land under theri control and Palestinians (since 1965) have a duty to negotiate with words, rather than violence, which territories they will have. And none of those must be allowed to be Jew free; if there are Muslim Israelis, it is only fair and reasonable that there should be Jewish Palestinians in the future. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Israel will not become a genuine democracy until it creates a procedure to over-ride supreme court rulings. It is fitting that a court should declare whether a piece legislation is in keeping with previous laws or practices. Where a court acts as an unelected clique overuling decisions by elected parliamentarians, the rule of law ceases and a regime of lawyers is established. This is particularly pernicious when those lawyers are all of the same ideological bent. The Knesset must act to both establish its primacy and to enact legislation to dismiss judges who consistently hand down judgements which the Knesset must over-rule. If the supreme court had any respect for the law, it would rule against its own dictatorial powers. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Firstly, if Gordon Brown kneels down before the those Islamofascists' demands, he will confirm the UK's dhimmi status and that country being a firm vassal territory of Eurabia. The cheek of those Mohammedans, attempting to blackmail the country in which they live! Those callous dogs have not even breathed a word about Hamas; clearly they identify with those terrorists. Secondly, Keller's comment is clearly divorced from reality. The Mohammedans just cannot accept the Jew as an equal. There was no "greed attack" in 1948, just an act of self-determination by Jews on land they had bought and made productive. Jews want peace, Mohammedans fight for supremacy and to humiliate the Jew for daring to have resisted their attempts at annihilation. And anyone who thinks otherwise is deaf to what Mohammedans are saying. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Only the wilfully blind would fail to see that unlike in Darfur, no-one in Gaza is starving. The people are if anything plump and they are move vigourously. Kampeas wrongly criticises "collective punishment", which in its original use referred to the Nazi murders of innocents in a locality where people faught against them. Where villagers celebrate the terrorism of some of their neighbors, a shut down is neither collective punishment, nor an undeserved response to their identification with evil. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 The High Court ruled that a legally elected government could act to resolve a dispute before the dispute itself was adjudicated. Coming from a court that acts on the basis that everything is adjudicable, that ruling was hypocritical, illogical, indeed risible. Israel will not be a full democracy until both the judiciary and the legislature are reformed. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 Surely, if the blockade of Gaza goes against the consciences of Arab-Israeli lawmakers they are free to resign. They cannot be part of the apparatus of a democracy and then act against its decisions. Moreover, if the settlers of the Peace House in Hebron were evicted to uphold the law, the law must be applied to keep the lawmakers from sailng to Gaza. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00 If Arabs can live anywhere in Israel, Jews should be allowed to live anywhere in Judea, Samaria or even Gaza. If Medinat Falestin ever becomes a reality, it must not be allowed to ethnically cleanse Jews who are willing to be its loyal citizens. Jewish peaceniks must not be allowed to do the ethnic cleansing of Jews from disputed territories on behalf of the Arabs. 2009-11-08T;03:12:00-05:00