the USA, Israel, and national interest

belgium has less incentive

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4752349n

thanks Hurting :)

wow, that was infuriating

>wow, that was infuriating

especially the woman's very rationale at the end. it's just all justified because of the Holy Land argument. we are going to use our sanctimonious teachings here to rip people out of their homes in the 21st century and hold onto this earth FOREVER. CHOSEN PEOPLE RAH

sure there are tons here and there who believe all manner of fundamentalist rhetoric. but the fact that she's the elected leader or whatnot is the disturbing factor

Yeah, it is maddening. I've had a number of conversations with a range of "moderate Israelis" on the settlers in the West Bank. It's not uncommon to hear outright rage against them, references to them as "crazy" etc., and even claims that they are going to ruin everything for Israel, but at the same time the reaction was more mixed when Israel was actually moving settlers out of Gaza (it was painful for many to watch scenes of the government forcibly moving "its own people.") It would be much tougher for Israel to relocate the West Bank settlers, who are numerous enough to make themselves felt very strongly within Israel proper if moved there.

I've wondered for a long time whether the settlements are more a case of deliberate, coherent strategic prevention of a two-state solution or merely the result of a lack of political will or an imbalanced political balancing act. My guess is that it's at least some of both.

Watching that video even I couldn't help feeling Holocaust resonances. I certainly don't think there's any "final solution" in the works, but there is certainly systematic oppression and humiliation.

That was the thing that struck me the most---I guess I'd never fully appreciated how systematic the oppression really was. Actually startled roommate when I said "what teh fuck" aloud to the part about only Israelis getting to use the roads.

But yeah, equally unsettling were the images of forcible removal. That kind of government action is stomach-churning regardless of your sympathies, though I can't shake the feeling that that is a very central part of the settler's strategy in the long run.

Yeah, I didn't know the thing about the roads myself. I actually didn't realize how massive the "settlements" had become -- settlement is a misleading word, really.

I know this is flawed as an analogue, but the first thought I had when they showed those aerial shots of the settlements was of Tibet, and the official gov't policy of the Han Chinese moving in there and just supplanting the native people by creating their own developments. But all comparisons end when you consider the demographics, and how the guy chillingly said that soon the Palestinians will outnumber Israelis, so...

"...according to the report: Within 10 years... The Israelis have three options:

1. They could try ethnic cleansing. Drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank.
2. Give Palestinians a vote, which would end of the Jewish state.
3. Inflict apartheid "

Then they show the guy from Jerusalem who's got family there and is never allowed to return again after getting kicked out, and you realize HOW fucked EVREYONE is going to be...it turns me against the last-minute-of-the-Bush-presidency-actions of the past 5 weeks so much more

these policies are basically leading to an inevitable march towards endless "active" war - unless some really strong third party intervenes that cannot compromise on rejecting a two-state solution

Tibet also came to my mind.

I'm not entirely clear on the immediate significance of the "majority" figure however since it refers to the total number of Palestinians within Israel and the territories combined. The Palestinians in Israel have the vote in Israel, but the rest live in a quasi-autonomous state and do not vote in Israeli elections. So I'm not clear on why the combined majority makes for an immediate problem that doesn't already exist.

Maybe they just meant that in reference to /context of fighting against a two-state solution

The real demographic problem I see is that religious nationalist Israelis breed faster than other Israelis, giving them more power over time in Israeli politics.

http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/imgad?id=COWi9OmJoo78dxCsAhjvATIIbib3zrRGNwk

Hamas torturing Palestinians

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4290553/Gaza-Palestinian-family-mourns-48-dead.html

LINK WAR! What we really need is some way that links could start taking down people not directly involved in the conflict, and then we could argue over whose fault that was.

Oh i think it's important, coming from a newspaper dubbed the 'TelAvivograph'

Keep seeing this on friends-of-friends-of-friends' facebook profiles.
The Jewish version of cryingeagle.jpg?

http://profile.ak.facebook.com/v229/1508/55/s720800818_9440.jpg

Tales of War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Reading Robert Fisk's "The War For Civilization" + stumbling across Kyl's recent address to AIPAC on Comcast (wtf, this is what passes for free cable TV entertainment?!?) have made me... um ... kinda deeply ashamed as an American Jew. Not like I have leverage with Israel or anything, but seriously wtf my people.

two neutral sources there.........

Haaretz on Bibi: 'You're nuts and your aides all loathe each other.' (This may well be SOP for Haaretz, I realize.)

If by SOP you mean telling the truth, yes.

Works for me!

Netanyahu was always nuts. Good choice there, israeli electorate!

the Jerusalem Post quoting Huckabee as saying: “It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want.”

arrrgh fuck you there is so much wrong with this statement...

stay classy Israel!

Israel certainly has good reason to put him on its most wanted list. Al-Mabhouh was behind the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.

Stay classy, Hamas!

yeah tbh assassinating a terrorist + no innocent civilians dying = about as classy as this is gonna get

kind of a weird thread for this. p sure killing upper-tier hamas guys is in israel's interest?

I dunno it just seemed like one of the more recently updated Israel threads (there are a bunch)

obviously dude was a bad guy, but I'm more of a courts-and-jails kinda guy. state-sponsored assassination, eh not so much

"first the sentence, THEN the verdict"

this is how the middle east's beacon of democracy and the rule of law behaves

How's Israel's extradition treaty with Dubai btw?

dubai the way

i my omanpinion

"first the sentence, THEN the verdict"

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 12:49 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is how the middle east's beacon of democracy and the rule of law behaves

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 12:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

no-one's actually been convicted of/has admitted to the killing, so you're not applying these principles too stringently. not sure how this is "undemocratic" btw; but truly, violating the laws of dubai is something whoever did this should be very ashamed of, i agree.

its a pretty dubaious rationale

I don't support state-sponsored assassination, if that's what this is, but at least this kind of "Munich" style operation has got to have more class than using drones to bomb the bejeezus out of tribespeople in Pakistan border areas every few weeks in the hopes of hitting Bin Laden.

hmmm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1251260/Team-11-Europeans-killed-senior-Hamas-leader-claims-Dubai-police-chief.html

it's interesting to see history mayne's allegiance to power strengthen with every passing year

p sure hamas represent "power" too trace!

sure it does, yes, it's just the same isn't it

well, no, it's kind of worse tbh...

honestly your transformation from socialist high-grounder to centre-right "realist" has been something to behold

i guess; though, really, i don't think this has anything to do with socialism.

i've never, ever, put stuff in terms of being in favour of or against "power", which seems to me amoral chomskyism and always has. and i've definitely always thought hamas were a bunch of wrong 'uns.

i never said you did put stuff in those terms, quite the opposite; however to ignore power relationships in the case of israel and its neighbours is to ignore what makes them tick

and to ignore the laws of a country because you think those laws are corrupt is to essentially adopt a terrorist mindset

finally, to carry out extra-judicial killing is to do the same