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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"So long as Israel is a lone beacon of democracy and equality (for it's citizens, at least) in a region overrun with misogynistic, anti-democratic, 19th century nations I think most Americans will identify and sympathize with Israel."
Yes, the Arab regimes are feudal and mostly theocratic, I have nothing good to say about any regime in the Arab world. However, where did you get the fallacy that Israel is a "beacon" of equality for all its citizens. Citizens who aren't Jewish, particularly Israeli Arabs, are victims of systemic discriminations. Compare schools, roads and all other infrastructure in the Arab sector to the Jewish sector and you'll realize immediately how baseless, fact-less and ignorant your claim is. For example, when an Arab challenges a Jewish person in an Israeli civil court, the Arab chances of receiving a favorable ruling are about the same as mine winning the California lottery.
If its the former, surely this lady should remember the Hippocratic oath rather than condone the brutal massacre of Palestinian children sheltering from the Israeli bombardment in a UN school, as has happened today. Hamas doesn't have bombs, as Amy claims, and neither does it have war-planes, tanks and field artillery, all supplied or funded by Uncle Sam.
America is well on the way to being the most hated country on earth, even more despised than any of the colonial powers of the 19th and first half of the twentieth century. So, there are about 8 million people in Israel, roughly 300-to-400 in the USA, and, believe you me,you are now pitted against most of the fair-minded people on this planet. Child-murderers!
Wasn't it the 1967 war that significantly changed US policy regarding Israel, fully forged the Faustian bargain we've made with Israel since then, locked the US policy on autopilot?
Prior to the 1967 War, the US was fairly aloof to Israel, or at least was cozier with the assorted Arab despots we coddled in the region, like the Shah and what-not. Seems like once the Middle East began slipping out of our hands and our demand for oil escalated, the US got ever-cozier with Israel.
It's unsettling to think that a more pro-democratic American policy in the Middle East would allow for a variety of anti-American states to come about in the region -- to be pro-democracy in the region means going against American policy. Almost like our policy has fuck-all to do with supporting democracy, and everything to do with ready access to oil. Once that oil is gone, will our diehard support for Israel continue? Time will tell. Judging from our past history, don't hold your breath -- there won't be a strategic reason to support Israel, anymore, and our policy will shift accordingly.
I thought the MD stood for Mad Dog.
Rabies is all the rage!
It's hard to believe that your a medical doctor, given your cruelty, racism and blind chauvinism. If you are indeed a medical doctor, the only one you resemble is Dr. Mengele.
Well for more than half of Jews living in Yesha a 'settlement' is community or suburb geographically adjacent, and contiguous to incorporated Jerusalem.
About half of all Jewish communities in Yesha are self described as secular or mixed. They comprise about 60-65% of the total Jewish population in Yesha. Secular suburbs sprang up mostly because they were affordable and in the wake of Israel taking in more than a million ex Soviets it was a convenient place to house them. For the remainder, the majority of Israelis live in 8 large population blocs in places like Kiryat Arba. Often labeled "Hebron" Kirat Arba is a new town that was built atop the rolling brown hills of nothing about 15km outside of the actual town of Hebron.
At the end of the day you will probably get your Jew free ethnically cleansed 'Palestine'. It will come at the cost of leaving about 8-9% of the land area inside Yesha which are today in and around Jerusalem and/or abut the green line. For the remainder, the 100,000 or so Jews, you can cheer as they are thrown from their homes and made internal refugees inside Israel like the 9,000 people kicked out of their towns in Gaza in 2005. Much like the 850,000 Jews who were cleansed from Arab countries 1948-54, often at gunpoint, these new refugees will be taken in and resettled.
The Shiny Happy Free Democratic Islamic People's Republic of Palestine will be in effect, cleansed of all its Jews, will declare its independence and then proceed to the next 40 or 50 years of failure, demands and blaming.
Of the thing that the Palestinians are most afraid of is independence. Why? Because on the day that there is a Palestinian state, Arab countries will begin to expel their own Palestinian 'refugees'. They've never given citizenship to Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and many in Jordan. So those states will kick their Palestinians back 'home'. This will add several hundred thousand new immigrants for Hamas and the PLO to manage. Taking people in is never something they've had to deal with, only pushing people out. So this will be a great strain on them. They will discover that having a country is more than having a flag and waving an AK-47 over your head. Someone's got to pick up the trash, run the post office, enter into treaties, bargain trade. Standing up in the UN spending all your time exhorting the world to murder Jews will only feed so many of your people. Eventually you've got to do a bit more than that. Moreover, they will have to actually pay their bills. For instance they get about 80% of the electricity in Gaza from Israel. For which they rarely if ever pay for. For an independent Palestine, not paying your bills is not an option. Likewise they'll have to enter into agreements on water, sewer, pollution, waste management. And they'll have to do it without resorting to terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. Much as we'd all like to blow up the phone company, you can't actually do that w/o suffering the consequences. Even if you're Palestinian.
Now to their benefit, they are today the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid, in the world. It works out to about $1000 for every man woman and child per year. This will continue, probably indefinitely. The UN the EU and US have an interest in keeping that funding stream open even if it's just to maintain them. It's 6 one half dozen the other whether they send money to the Palestinians directly or indirectly. Corruption is a massive problem either way. Before he died Arafat stole about 8 billion dollars never to be seen again. So in the end, independent Palestine takes on the appearance of a not quite functional, not quite failed state; not quite as bad as Somalia or Zimbabwe, not quite as totalitarian fascist as Syria. Something in between. But it will be free of Jews, so there's that.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
