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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Do you therefore support the United States making its "aid" to Israel conditional upon Israel stopping settlement expansion in the West Bank?
No. What's one thing got to do with the other?
Isn't Klytus the redneck character from the Simpsons?
Results.
Re: Kxxxxs
Please don't feed the troll.
There's nothing "red"
About this brown brother
You can't keep my ass caged
In your little box
Of the outsider "other...."
Me: "Do you therefore support the United States making its "aid" to Israel conditional upon Israel stopping settlement expansion in the West Bank?"
JonathanInTelAviv: "No. What's one thing got to do with the other?"
As I noted earlier in tbis thread:
As anyone who follows the conflict knows, all the United States has to do is make our "aid" to Israeli conditional on Israel stopping settlement expansion and that's what would happen. And since we (the United States) do not do that we are instead actively helping to extend and inflame the conflict.
Since you say you do not support settlement expansion in the West Bank, specifically what objection do you have to the U.S. making our "aid" to Israel conditional upon Israel stopping settlement expansion in the West Bank?
I agree with you that Israel's stopping the expansion of settlements can help reduce tensions, and therefore help move towards a solution by showing Israeli goodwill in the eyes of moderate Palestinians, thereby strenghtening them. The conditioning you propose eliminates that effect, since then if Israel "caves in" it will be seen as weakness by Israel, instead of goodwill.
Do you agree?
Who said as part of his/her excellent response to my post: 'However: the Israelis, when they were working to establish their own independent state, could not and thus would not stop all terrorists activities by their own people - those terrorists activities instead only stopped after the state of Israel was established. Given that reality, what makes you think that the Palestinians could achieve what the Israelis could not in that regard?'
The Israelis back then managed to get away with that. It's not fair, but I don't see the Palestinians being allowed that same latitude.
The thing is, IF the Palestinians were able to control their populace for a set period of time, it hopefully forces the Israelis to come & negotiate. The Israelis think they're bluffing 'Be peaceful & we'll talk' (thinking they'll never be peaceful). If you can do what they think you can't, then they get hoisted by their own petard.
The world according to Zionists:
- West Bank colonies are to be expanded constantly. Palestinian land and water resources can be stolen and given to people coming from anywhere else as long as they are Jewish.
- Palestinians have to keep passive about it. Otherwise they are terrorists (even if all they do is throw a stone at the colonists stealing their land or protest peacefully like at Bil'in).
- Palestinians are to be confined in fenced-in areas that keep on shrinking.
- The Israeli army and armed settlers have the right to go into Palestinian areas and kill at will using lethal force that typically exceed whatever provocation the Palestinians may have committed by many orders of magnitude. If innocents are killed it must be the fault of the terrorists (either that or there are no innocents because all Palestinians are terrorists). This is called self defense.
- Naturally the rest of the world has to continue to support Israel (or a least keep silent). Otherwise, they are anti-semites.
- Anyone who doesn't agree is a terrorist sympathizer or worst!
Can you disagree without being disagreeable, Xanthro?
No, if someone is a Jew Hater, I will continue to be disagreeable.
Xanthro: "It wasn't a political disaster for Israel."
You curiously omitted the following from your narrative. As explained by Israeli historian Benny Morris in "Righteous Victims - A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001":
I'm fully aware of all the negative connections as well.
What truly matters is that the entire nature of the relationship between the two groups changed because of the 1982 Lebanon campaign.
Israel no longer insists that all the West Bank and Gaza be part of Israel, and the PLO no longer insists that all of Israel be part of Palestine.
A two state solution is now a workable solution.
Both sides now agree with the goal, it's the details that require work.
Previously, even the goal itself wasn't agreed upon.
That is a huge change.
Xanthro: "Israel will be very lucky if this Gaza conflict ends up like the Lebanon conflict in 1982."
God I hope not. By analogy, and as Gary correctly put it, "Qaida-like groups would flourish."
-- Publicola
Such groups will always flourish, and have little to do with Israel.
What matters is that Hamas has shown itself somewhat competent at actual civil leadership. It would likely do a better job running Palestine than the PA or the PLO.
If like in 1982, Hamas understands that they can't military defeat Israel, and that a two-state solution is the only possible outcome, then Israel gains, because it has another entity to peace talks.
If the PLO ran the West Bank and Gaza as competently as Hamas has run Gaza over the last year, Palestine would already be a State.
Note, I'm also well aware of the violence that Hamas has committed in Gaza, but the point is they have shown an actual interest in Governing.
Israel's stopping the expansion of settlements can help reduce tensions, and therefore help move towards a solution by showing Israeli goodwill in the eyes of moderate Palestinians
- Jonathan in Tel Aviv
So the settlements which are illegal under international law, which deprive the Palestinians from their land and livelihood and which imprison them in areas bounded by for-Jews-only roads are not really a problem. But stopping them might "help move toward a solution"!
Are Israeli women as beautiful as they say they are?
Do you think if they cut off Glennn's and Kamiya's heads, they'd change their minds?
Do you think some of the doofuses here would change their minds if they got their heads sliced off?
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The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
