COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Natural Growth of Israeli Settlements or Illegal Taking of Palestinian Land?



To my way of thinking the argument is irrelevant to hard facts: Israel and Palestine share the same land. 

The Arab population, by weight of demography, will overwhelm the Jews. In a democracy, the Jews have the same problem as the American Republicans; there are simply too many of the others and they are growing faster.

The irony is that expanding Israeli settlements only increases the Arab population within Israeli borders.  The expanding settlements hasten the day when Jews become the minority in Israel.

Without a compromise acceptable to both sides, democracy or the minority loses. If Israel gives up on democracy, Israel loses. If Israel devolves into a pluralistic society with a majority Arab population, it ceases to be a Jewish state and ceases to be Israel.

No nice words or pretty speeches are going to resolve this mess. No defiance from Israeli hard-liners will be sustainable over time.  

The settlements should stop if Israel wants to survive. 

If I were a cynic, I would  suggest something far more polite and acceptable, a quiet policy of Jewish gentrification of poorer Arab neighborhoods in Israel proper.   It is Israel's problem to make better or worse.

______________________

Some in Congress uneasy with Obama's Mideast policy

Democrats say they strongly support the peace initiative, but some have voiced anxiety about the president's call for a freeze on Jewish settlement growth in the West Bank.

By Paul Richter and Richard Boudreaux LA Times
June 4, 2009

Reporting from Washington and Jerusalem -- Key U.S. lawmakers whose support is crucial to the Obama administration's Middle East peace effort are showing signs of unease with the administration's aggressive approach to Israel.

Though they strongly support the peace initiative, many say they want the White House to back off its demand that the Israeli government halt all growth in Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory. Some members of Congress are also unhappy that the Obama administration has gone public in its dispute with Israel.

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said focusing on settlement activity "detracts" from top U.S. goals in the region. However, he added: "I do not support a settlement freeze that calls on Israeli families not to grow, get married, or forces them to throw away their grandparents. Telling people not to have children is unthinkable and inhumane."

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that "we have to be careful not to cross the line where it sounds like we are exerting overwhelming pressure . . . on our rather isolated ally."

Congress has always been a pivotal player on Mideast policy. When Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush pressed Israel for concessions, Israeli leaders turned to their allies in Congress, who in turn brought pressure on the White House.

This year, the Democratic Congress has been strongly on the side of the popular new president's Middle East policy, and the Israeli leadership appears to be in a weaker position. When new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington last month, top lawmakers told him that rapid settlement growth was hurting Israel's cause, and urged him to slow it down, lawmakers said.

Yet ripples of concern are radiating through Congress and pro-Israeli organizations.

The disagreement seemed to sharpen in the last week, as President Obama called for a freeze on settlement growth. Israeli officials have complained that the administration was not recognizing secret oral agreements they say the George W. Bush administration reached with Israel to permit some expansion.

Palestinians and moderate Arab governments have made it clear that nothing short of a full freeze would satisfy them.

Though U.S. lawmakers and many advocacy groups continue to stand with Obama, there are hints that that position could shift.

The lawmakers "are feeling cross-pressured," said Steven J. Rosen, a former senior official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby. "Lots of Democrats have long wanted to see less settlement activity, so they're not inclined to intervene in a fight in defense of settlements. Yet there's no love for the theory that the United States should try to dictate to Israel its policies."

Last month, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) collected 329 signatures on a letter that urged the administration to keep disagreements with Israel private, and to leave negotiations to the Israelis and Palestinians themselves.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the settlement question "is pretty much an isolated issue" and that the U.S. and Israel broadly agree on matters such as Iran's nuclear program and dealings with Palestinian militant groups.

He said the administration was justified in focusing on the settlements, since their growth puts in doubt for some Palestinians the possibility that they will ever have their own viable state. Even so, Berman said, he believes it is "not reasonable" to deny all settlement growth.

Israeli and U.S. officials continue seeking middle ground in almost daily conversations, yet the rift continues to grow.

Israeli officials say they have gone public on the secret oral deal during the Bush era to clear up the impression that Israel has "hoodwinked the world" on the settlements.

A senior Israeli official said Israel had followed the terms of the 2003 peace plan supported by the U.S. called the "road map" -- not appropriating new Palestinian land, not building new settlements, not providing new financial incentives for Israelis to move to the West Bank. But he said the deal permitted some "natural growth" in existing settlements.

"When Israel committed to the road map, it was based on private understandings," the official said. "It's hard for the United States to come and say, 'You have made these commitments,' but to ignore the understandings."

Elliott Abrams, a Bush administration official who took part in 2003 talks preceding the road map agreement, supported the Israeli arguments in an op-ed article that appeared April 8 in the Washington Post. He wrote that the Israelis had "largely adhered to guidelines that were discussed with the United States but never formally adopted" and aimed at permitting growth with only limited impact on Palestinians.




134 comments:

  1. Without a compromise acceptable to both sides--
    -/

    The evidence of 1400 years argues there will never be a compromise acceptable to both sides. When Jews are welcome in Saudi Arabia, Baghdad and Tehran....

    It's never been run by the Palestinians. They have rejected good offers in the past. They are now basically all Hamas. They want to push the Jews into the sea. Let the Jews draw the lines where they want, keeping the 'Palestinians' out.

    If they need an urban planner, I offer my expertise.

    ReplyDelete
  2. (Since Mat's not here to comment, thought I better make a tough comment)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Listening to Bennet listening to the Messiah:
    Says Muslims helped us build the tallest building.
    Live and learn, I guess:
    I had the mistaken idea that they were instrumental in bringing down our two tallest buildings.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "...based upon mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition," Obama said."
    ---
    Definitely too much competition between us and the Taliban, us and al-Queda.
    Cooperation will be Key.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bennet reminds us that W used the Religion of Peace POS statement soon (after 9-11) and often.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Open Government Initiative
    -
    Yesterday ALL Pubs were excluded from a Meeting on Healthcare.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

    This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.

    It is time for these settlements to stop.
    "

    ReplyDelete
  8. Missing Words:

    Freedom

    Democracy

    Terrorism

    ReplyDelete
  9. The clear responsibility is with the Arabs and Palestinians. There would not be settlements had Israel had never been attacked.

    That was then. This is now. The settlements are just a bad idea.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I just listened to Obama, and he clearly is leaning towards the Muslims. No surprise there.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

    And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch.
    And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library.

    ReplyDelete
  12. the speech was nothing new from obama but the same moral-equivalency arguments and left wing slather to smear Amerika.

    ReplyDelete
  13. "I consider it part of my responsibility, as president of the United States, to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam."

    ReplyDelete
  14. Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools, will be on Bennet show for an hour, starting now.
    KABC 790 Online

    ReplyDelete
  15. "the speech was nothing new from obama but the same moral-equivalency arguments and left wing slather to smear Amerika."
    ---
    "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

    Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye.
    Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess,
    Boy, you been a naughty girl and you let your knickers down.
    I am the eggman (woo), they are the eggmen (woo), I am the walrus,
    Goo goo ga joob.
    "

    ReplyDelete
  16. Islam is not the enemy, that is US policy. It has been the policy, it will remain the policy.

    The Israeli have promised to halt the expansion of those settlements, they will be held to those promises.
    By the United States.

    bob goes for the moral equivalency argument, mentioning Saudi Arabia. This when the Sauds are vitally important to the National Interests of the US, while the Israeli are not.

    Which explains why the US standards vary. One country provides US with daily sustenance, the other does not. That's the reality.

    The current economic crisis, not caused by the "Bank Meltdown", but by an oil shock. The Banking collapse a symptom of the oil shock, not the cause. Obama and his mates on Team Obamamerica know this, even if the rest of US seem to have forgotten.

    The greater the Israeli hardline, on the settlements, the more the US will press.

    The next step is Israel's to take.

    Iran is a strawman for the Isrealis intransigent behaviour
    towards the Palistinians.
    With little or no correlation, from the current US perspective. Which will hold sway for another 7 years and 8 months, at least.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Within the boundaries of what Israel considers "Israel" live well over one-million non-Jewish "citizens". These folk go to work, send their children to school, attend non-Jewish religious services, vote, and live life unmolested, uneventfully, on the whole. How's that working out for Jews in the Palestinian Authority? Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon etc, etc, etc?

    Lebensraum is pretense; the issue is existential: Jews believe they have the right to life; the rest of the world does not.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Not to life, allen, but to rule over a million of those non-Jews and non-Israeli citizens.
    Or the Israeli would have let the Gazani and those on the West Bank vote in Israeli elections, they would have extended citizenship to them, when they did not return the land to Eygpt and Jordon. In 1968.

    It is not the quality of that rule that is the cause of the conflict. It is the Israeli hubris in lands captured and not returned, after the conflict was over. Which the US enabled, by providing them a preponderance of power.

    The Israeli, with that preponderance of power, claim the "war" never ends. Pushing the Palistinians into an extreme position.

    That is the current and continuing US position, on the status que.
    It will not stand.

    Our President has said as much.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Palestinians merit Right of Return,
    Allen.
    Christians and Jews have no right to defile Arab Soil.

    ReplyDelete
  21. 'Rat has never addressed the exclusion of Jews and Christians from almost all Arab lands, far as I can tell.
    Not sure why.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Kinda like Barry only talking about US History wrt Slavery.

    Failing to mention the millions enslaved by Muslims.
    Many even to this day.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Because doug, while it is a fact, it goes to a moral-equivelecy argument that I reject, out of hand.

    Those Arab countries not supported by US from the inception of those Countries. Indeed most of them, culturally, predating the US.

    Israel being the "Western" example. Representitive, I am continually told, of ME and MINE. The Arabs are not, never have been, never will be.

    The standards are not the same. I hold me and mine, and those who represent US, to higher standard than I hold goat fuckers.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Closet Moral Equivalency w/a Pretzel Logic Twist.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Desert Rat said:

    "I hold me and mine, and those who represent US, to higher standard than I hold goat fuckers."

    Well Rat, that explains why you are continually let down by our country, its leadership (both parties) and many of your fellows here at the EB!

    ReplyDelete
  27. "The current economic crisis, not caused by the "Bank Meltdown", but by an oil shock. The Banking collapse a symptom of the oil shock, not the cause. Obama and his mates on Team Obamamerica know this, even if the rest of US seem to have forgotten."
    ---
    11 Trillion (and counting) writedown in Real Estate Value, a mere rounding error.
    CDO Trillions written off:
    Who Knows How Many?
    We know the Fed doe not know.

    ReplyDelete
  28. "The Banking collapse a symptom of the oil shock, not the cause."
    ---
    With 2 dollar gas, Angelenos could have held onto real estate five times higher than their incomes could support, forever, even after Alt-A Mortgage Resets.

    ReplyDelete
  29. The further analogy, doug.

    The Gaza settlements were to Israel what Israel is to the West.

    Outside the defendable borders.

    Or, another analogy, the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, critical to very existance of the Governing System.
    Of Israel or the West

    From my perspective, seeing the Jews as a religion and not a race. The current State of Israel, as allen said, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, is the latest extention of European colonialism.
    Exemplified by the million Russians that moved there in the 1990's.

    Another European attempt to suppress the Muslims, claim the Levant in the name of religion, and as a refugee camp for displaced Europeons.
    Continuing the trends that the Europeons have been following in the Leavant since 1095.

    As Mr Bush said, "It's a crusade!"

    ReplyDelete
  30. Well, doug, the cause of the burst was a liquity crisis, caused by the oil market peaking well above $140 per barrel.

    The sucking sound was the cash flowing to the deserts of Saudi Arabia and the jungles of Venezuela.

    That there was internal rot within the Banking system, a given. But yeah, it could have limped along, if not for the oil shock.

    That the rest of the US infrastructure is rotten, as exemplified by GM, the reason that Team Obamamerica cannot permit another economic shock to the system.

    Or we may well lose another wing of our house of cards.

    To internal rot that is still unseen.

    ReplyDelete
  31. There is little doubt in my mind that when the United Nations legally established Israel, it did so as a cynically empty gesture, anticipating that the Arabs would quickly complete the recently failed European plan for solving the "Jewish Question". To the amazement and disgust of all, the vastly superior, European armed and trained Arab armies failed. From that point until the present, the plan has been the deligitimization of Israel at every opportunity under any pretextual veneer, impatiently awaiting the day when the grand design would be finished.

    The failure of Israeli leadership has been the age-old one (emphatically decried by most of the ancient Jewish prophets) - optimistic reliance upon foreign alliances.

    Fortunately, while Israeli politicians have spent the last six decades begging Pharaoh’s support against the Assyrians, Jewish physicists have relied upon Einstein et al for a better way. If death it must be, then, it will be death on an unprecedented scale. We will not quietly shuffle into that long, dark night.

    ReplyDelete
  32. The fires of economic crisis burning for so long now, that another shock could cause the US to collapse, like Buuilding 7 at the World Trade Center.

    Spontaneous failure, across the entire edifice.

    ReplyDelete
  33. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  34. While you yearn for Reagan's return, doug, you have abandoned the shining city on the hill, for the squalor of moral equivalency.

    I won't go there.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Sorry, gave wrong station above.
    -
    Correct One
    krla870.townhall.com/

    ReplyDelete
  36. "the reason that Team Obamamerica cannot permit another economic shock to the system."
    ---
    All BHO's Team has down is make matter much worse.

    ReplyDelete
  37. In the end, as Camus observed, it is always innocence and not guilt that is called on to justify itself. Guilt doesn’t give a damn.

    ReplyDelete
  38. That's right, murray.

    I recongnize the reality of it. Being more a cynic than an idealist

    As H. L. Mencken said
    An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

    Another of his quotes I find insightful, in this day and age, at least

    The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

    But then again, Mr H. L. Mencken thought himself a cynic, too.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I agree, doug, that the long term trends which Team Obamamerica have embraced will not improve the condition of the United States.

    They are, however, just following the trends of the post WWII era.
    Accelerating as we approach the "Black Hole" of unsustainability.

    As lineman noted the other day, in a rational whirled the Israeli situation would not be amongst the top 20 issues.

    The primary issue, in a rational whirled, would be how 6% of the population can continue to consume 50% of the annual economic product.

    It is in the National Interest of the United States and the Europeons to postpone the global primacy of that issue for as long as possible.

    ReplyDelete
  40. The positive spirit of the Arab peace initiative, together with the road map, provides a clear opportunity. Israel did not take part in the wording of the Arab peace initiative and, therefore, should not be expected to accept its every word. But Israel will refrain from imposing its own wording on other parties and is ready to negotiate common ground. Regional negotiations should start without preconditions.

    His Majesty, the Jordanian King, is right to emphasise that this is a unique opportunity. It is time to sail the strong wind, which today is blowing in the right direction. There is no greater strength than the power of an idea that has come to fruition. That is the case for peace today.

    The passengers are ready. The ship is waiting. It is time for the navigators to decisively take the helm
    .

    Shimon Peres is the President of Israel

    ReplyDelete
  41. Re: Peres

    Islam is a religion of peace.
    ___George W. Bush

    Two wrongs do not make a right.

    ReplyDelete
  42. The Wilderness Years Begin
    By William Voegeli
    :

    American conservatism, according to John Judis, has "slipped back into the chaos and impotence that prevailed" before National Review was launched in 1955. Judis, a careful though not neutral observer of all things conservative, reported in the New Republic, "Conservatives' repudiation of Bush is part of their own self-denial. By pretending that he is entirely separate from them, they can delude themselves" that his unpopularity is not theirs.

    Conservatives at the dawn of the :Obamerican Century" may be comforted to learn that Judis wrote this obituary in 1992, one Bush presidency and half an election-cycle before Republicans won congressional majorities that would last for 12 years. Lexis-Nexis is pitiless to writers who confidently explain how yesterday's election will shape the next decade's politics
    .

    Obamamerica or Obamerica?

    Decisions, decisions ...

    ReplyDelete
  43. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  44. President Obama speaking to bob's primary issue:

    The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

    I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

    Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

    Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Caine: Is it good to seek the past, Master Po? Does it not rob the present?
    Master Po: If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past
    .

    CNN Breaking News:

    -- 'Kung Fu' star David Carradine has been found dead in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, according to his manager.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Master Po: [after easily defeating the boy in combat] Ha, ha, never assume because a man has no eyes he cannot see. Close your eyes. What do you hear?
    Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
    Master Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
    Young Caine: No.
    Master Po: Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?
    Young Caine: [looking down and seeing the insect] Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
    Master Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?

    ReplyDelete
  47. Kwai Chang Caine: [quoting] Change is not only desirable, it is necessary.
    Peter Caine: Confucius?
    Kwai Chang Caine: Frank Zappa
    .


    Kung Fu: The Legend Continues 1993

    ReplyDelete
  48. I met Mr Carridine, once, at a Martial Arts trade show in CA. My buddy was making and marketing pvc, foam and canvas covered full contact training swords and sticks. Mr Carridine was there promoting a movie.

    First caught glimpse of him in the parking lot, where he got out of the passenger side of an old beater Caddie el Dorado.

    Burnt paint, cracked windshield and plume of oil blue exhaust standard equpment.

    Turned out his movie's booth was next to my buddy's. He spent the day, politely oblivious to the whirled around him, doing the NYTimes crossword puzzle.

    ReplyDelete
  49. The conspiracy spin can start immediately, amigos.

    Air France jet debris recovered.

    Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim said a 20km (13 mile) oil slick found by search planes "means that it is improbable that there was a fire or explosion".

    A Spanish pilot flying in the area at the time of the crash was quoted by his airline, Air Comet, as saying he had seen an "intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds".

    ReferencingPan Am flight 103, which crashed in Lockerbie. Scotland. It seems the fuel on Flight 103 did not ignite, until impact. The tanks exploded on the ground, not in the air.

    So this Airbus A330 may have suffered s similar fate. Impacting upon water, the fuel did not ignite, but caused the oil slicks found by the Brazilian Navy.

    Easy to spin the report into a fabricated reality that there was no bomb, because there was no fire.

    PanAm Flight 103 proving a bomb can destroy an aircraft, yet not set it afire in the air.

    ReplyDelete
  50. "...intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds".

    If something ignited an on board oxygen tank or system, that could account for the intense flash, descending and breaking up in six seconds, or so.

    The debris will be sequestered, and disposed of accidentally by a bureaucratic oversight.

    Unless there's profit in disclosure. Who might profit either way?

    ReplyDelete
  51. The debris is somewhere in the Atlantic, the prospects of it being found, remote.
    They still have not heard the black boxes and the batteries are about to die.

    The profit, that is in keeping the fear of flying to a minimum.

    Mechanical or pilot error preferred excuses to an anonymous terrorist attack.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Obama Challenges Muslims, Middle East - Steve Benen, Washington Monthly

    Obama's Speech: Not Bad - Max Boot, Contentions

    Obama Misunderstands the Middle East - Peter Daou, Huffington Post

    A Surprisingly Good Speech - Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

    Obama Didn't Overpromise - Christopher Preble, Cato@Liberty
    .

    BEST OF THE BLOGS

    ReplyDelete
  53. Why do the Russians support the Iranians in their quest to develop the full fuel cycle?

    ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The U.S. does not support Iran's involvement in the Nabucco gas project, a pipeline meant to supply Europe with gas, the U.S. special energy envoy said Thursday.

    Richard Morningstar, the U.S. special envoy for Eurasian energy issues, said Iran's participation in Nabucco — which is to link the Caspian Sea region, Mideast and Egypt to the European Union via Turkey — could only be possible after a normalization of diplomatic ties.

    Morningstar told a group of reporters Thursday that inviting Iran to the project without a resolution to the standoff over its nuclear program could "have a negative effect."

    "We don't want to change our policy unless Iran changes its policy," he said.

    Nabucco is designed to reduce EU dependence on Russian natural gas, but the project has yet to secure suppliers to make it viable.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Mechanical or pilot error preferred excuses to an anonymous terrorist attack.

    Fake but accurate...

    Plenty of debris is floating in the Atlantic according to news reports.

    The profit, that is in keeping the fear of flying to a minimum.

    Yes, I can partially agree there, but it doesn't serve the Air Bus or Air France labels well. The French having a vested interest in both.

    Let's see the debris.

    ReplyDelete
  55. The current State of Israel, as allen said, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, is the latest extention of European colonialism.--
    -/

    ah, jeez

    ReplyDelete
  56. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Let me step the record straight

    Stated: To my way of thinking the argument is irrelevant to hard facts: Israel and Palestine share the same land.

    POINT:

    Not quite.. The Majority of lands promised to the nascent Jewish state in the early part of the century via the League of Nation included what is now called Jordan.

    There was no such thing as a "Palestinian" in 1922.

    However there were arabs... Most of these claimed syrian attachments...

    When the idea of the Jewish state was revisited after WW2, the world leaders decided to TRASH the LEGAL world decree that the League of Nations had proposed

    visit here to get a real understanding..

    The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
    1920

    http://www.amichai.com/war/process/mandatemap.htm


    Once the THEFT of the Jewish homeland was complete in 1948 Israel was offered a tiny % of what was offered in 1920 and Israel agreed..

    and that caused the arabs to go to war to destroy the newly created state of Israel, it is most import to remember the ARABS REFUSED to create the STATE called Palestine at that TIME...

    Skip from 1948-1967 when Nasser (helped by the USA NOT living up to it's treaty obligations & the UN from NOT living up to it's mandates in Sinai) Caused the 1967 war.. In that war, Jordan who WAS NOT attacked by Israel, ATTACKED Israel and lost the lands of the west bank & Jerusalem.

    The LIBERATED city of Jerusalem, undivided in the 1st time in modern history allows all3 major faiths access to their own holy sites, something the Moslems & British who had controlled the area for centuries never let happen..

    Today Palestinians hold squatting rights to Jordan (original israel), Gaza (Jews lived there since before Samson) & 96% of the "west bank" (again judea & samaria Jews BOUGHT the land...

    SMALL NOTE: Omri, the king of Israel, purchased this hill from Shemer its owner for two talents of silver, and built on its broad summit the city to which he gave the name of "Shomeron", i.e., Samaria, as the new capital of his kingdom

    ReplyDelete
  58. Stated: The Arab population, by weight of demography, will overwhelm the Jews. In a democracy, the Jews have the same problem as the American Republicans; there are simply too many of the others and they are growing faster.

    Nonsense... There are 4 arab populations to consider

    1. arabs of the arab world... arabs now control 649/650th of the juden-free, ethnically cleansed middle east, they have effectively (except for morocco)

    2. arabs of gaza & west bank arabs living in highly concentrated homogenous groups, they do not live together with Jews in towns and villages (small exceptions (jerusalem) and not by choice) the arabs of gaza and west bank could go MONTHS if not their entire lives without seeing a Jew IF ONLY THE ARABS OF THE WEST BANK AND GAZA WERE TO STOP ATTEMPTING TO MURDER JEWS...

    3. the arabs of jordan they already have over 75% of original Israel, in the form of Jordan, to which they have over a 90% palestinian identification

    All of the above 3 groups have NOTHING to do with what happens inside of israel... they can breed like roaches, it has no bearing on the population of Israel.. Borders are the solution... 90% of all Jewish settlements inside of DISPUTED lands can be included into Israel proper with very small land adjustments...

    4. Arabs INSIDE of Israel, they make up 20% of the population of Israel and at no point in the far future will they OVER take Jewish population of the state.. Some of the more DENSELY populated arab towns MAY INFACT be drawn out of Israel and cut off from her, to be included in a Palestinian state

    stateD: The irony is that expanding Israeli settlements only increases the Arab population within Israeli borders. The expanding settlements hasten the day when Jews become the minority in Israel.

    total nonsense... Israel is ONLY building IN established settlements, there are NO new APPROVED settlements in the west bank by the State of Israel.


    Stated: Without a compromise acceptable to both sides, democracy or the minority loses. If Israel gives up on democracy, Israel loses. If Israel devolves into a pluralistic society with a majority Arab population, it ceases to be a Jewish state and ceases to be Israel.

    Wont happen... Israel will not VOTE to become ONE state from the river to the sea.., you will barely be able to JOIN Gaza and West bank arabs together let alone JOINING with Israel.

    Stated: No nice words or pretty speeches are going to resolve this mess. No defiance from Israeli hard-liners will be sustainable over time.

    again, adding a 7-11 or a block of flats verses palestinian rockets, suicide bombers and IED's? What has to happen is that the ARABS ACCEPT ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO BE A JEWISH STATE, then argue about borders

    stated: The settlements should stop if Israel wants to survive.

    No attacks by Arabs on Israel have to stop if they wish not to die, and if they make peace settlements can and have be discussed, arabs made war before the 1st settlements had ever been built, what was their excuse then?

    stated: If I were a cynic, I would suggest something far more polite and acceptable, a quiet policy of Jewish gentrification of poorer Arab neighborhoods in Israel proper. It is Israel's problem to make better or worse.

    Already happening, the arabs call it "judenification"

    ReplyDelete
  59. A Spanish newspaper said a transatlantic airline pilot reported seeing a bright flash of white light at the same time the Air France flight disappeared.--
    -/

    hmmm, I suppose lightning could cause fuel to explode, though planes get hit by lightning all the time....

    ReplyDelete
  60. Giving Obama his due, I have no problem with his basic statement about women there, though I got my doots that many women worldwide 'chose to cover their hair.' Maybe some do, but I doubt it's more than a few that really want to go about in a sack. I've observed, given a real choice, they almost always don't.

    ReplyDelete
  61. funny how that supposed Jewish homeland was called Palestine...11

    ReplyDelete
  62. from the heartland of America--

    BOB

    AS CHRISTIANS WE KNOW THAT ONE CANNOT ABANDON ISRAEL AND GET AWAY WITH IT, THEREFORE THAT THING IS GOING TO THE MUSLIMS FULL FORCE AND ISRAEL WILL BE LEFT ALONE, BUT REALLY NOT A LONE AT ALL FOR GOD IS GREATER THEN ALL AND I THINK THAT IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE GOD WILL SHOW THAT STUPID THING THAT HE AND HIS MUSLIN'S FRIENDS WILL LOOSE BIG TIME.

    BLESSINGS DALE


    and I hope he's right.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Ash, you made a typo there--it should read--

    !! not 11

    Just helping you out, I know you were excited by your thought.

    ReplyDelete
  64. ...careful, watch out for the mysterious 11

    ReplyDelete
  65. Ash said...
    funny how that supposed Jewish homeland was called Palestine...11


    Not really, the arabs STOLE that label from us...

    ReplyDelete
  66. Stealing a line from Mark Levin, I'd say over all the speech was a "grovelpalooza."

    ReplyDelete
  67. And I no longer think of Obama as our 'first black President.' After all, he had a crazy white mother, and his father, well, we're really not sure....anyways, it's a slander on American blacks to call him our first black President. Our first truly muslim loving President is more apt.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Wolf Issue Returns To Federal Court

    Environmental and animal rights groups challenge Obama Adiministration over delisting in Idaho, Montana

    AP--The fate of wolves in Idaho and Montana and proposed hunting seasons on the once endangered species has returned to a federal court.

    A coalition of environmental and animal rights groups followed through on their pledge and filed a lawsuit this week seeking to overturn the Obama administration's decision to move forward with wolf delisting in the two states.---


    And, so it always goes, damn I get tired of these stupid 'environmental and animal rights' groups.


    SSS

    ------------

    Is Michelle Obama on this big trip overseas? Is she in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with hubby?

    ReplyDelete
  69. "Palestine" was the ancient Roman word for Philistine. The Philistines were a non-Semitic, highly advanced seafaring people of unknown origin, who settled in costal cities on the eastern Mediterranean after a failed attempt at subduing Egyptian territory. The time-frame would have been about 2,600-3,000 years before the birth of Islam.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Could they have been earlier folks inhabiting Greek areas, pushed out by folks coming down from the north?

    I don't know, just askin'.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Obama to End Affirmative Action?

    George Joyce

    In his much anticipated speech in Cairo on Thursday, Barack Obama signaled his willingness to consider scrapping the entire divisive edifice of affirmative action in America. While discussing the record of “human history” as one in which groups of people have subjugated “one another in pursuit of their own interests” Obama sought to rectify this legacy of conflict and hostility by underscoring our interdependence:


    “Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.”


    In the spirit of hope and change then, it appears that Obama has finally announced his desire to bury once and for all one of the main causes of American disunity – elevating some groups over others based on racist criteria. This is welcome news, especially for those of us who were concerned about Mr. Obama’s commitment to American success.

    Since in his words elevating one group over another will surely lead to failure, we can expect Mr. Obama in the next few days to rescind his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. We also eagerly await the promotion of eighteen white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut to higher ranks based on their test scores.

    ReplyDelete
  72. never thought the u.s. could fall to such a low point in our history. a u.s. prsident seeking to make us equal amoung losers.--
    -/

    posted by Downtowndubai

    ReplyDelete
  73. bobal,

    The language of the Philistines is the problem. While apparently bearing sparse proto-Indo-European vestiges, it is certainly not Semitic.

    Ironically, just as the entire region was renamed by the Romans after a non-indigenous people following the final collapse of Israel, politically it has become the recent cause célèbre of non-indigenous Arabs, following the collapse of the non-indigenous Turkish, Ottoman Empire.

    ReplyDelete
  74. allen said...
    "Palestine" was the ancient Roman word for Philistine. The Philistines were a non-Semitic, highly advanced seafaring people of unknown origin, who settled in costal cities on the eastern Mediterranean after a failed attempt at subduing Egyptian territory. The time-frame would have been about 2,600-3,000 years before the birth of Islam.


    Actually no...

    Philistines means "sea people" and yes they lived in gaza about 2600 years ago..

    as for the term palestinia:

    After the Jewish rebellions of the first and second centuries CE, the Romans merged the province of Iudaea with Galilee, Samaria and Idumaea, uniting the entire area in a new province bearing the Greco-Latin name Syria-Palaestina.[22][23]. The application of the Latinized name Palaestina to the region of the Iudaea Province by the Roman emperor Hadrian[24][25] following the crushing Bar Kochba's revolt in 132-135[26] is seen by some historians as an attempt to suppress Jewish national feelings.[27][28]

    this was a clear attempt by the romans to rename the area to remove "jewish" attachments to the land

    ReplyDelete
  75. The Aryan warrior herdsmen whose covered wagons rumbled into India during the second millennium B.C. were matched in Greece, as we have seen, by the numerous and various hunting and herding warrior groups, great and small, whose devastations the archaeology of the Aegean has disclosed for the long period from c. 1900 to c. 1100 B.C. Writing of those who left their mark on the shores of southern Greece, Professor H.G.L. Hammond writes:

    "Some negative conclusions are permissable. The invaders brought no distinctive painted pottery or other mark of a developed civilization. They did not take to urban life. They were probably nomadic at first, living in tents and huts, using wooden utensils, and worshipping wooden statues. Their early village settlements were small. They showed no reverence for the standards of Mycenaean civilization, and therefore presumably came from outside the limits of the Mycenaean area. They must have been physically tough and ably led in order to overthrow the centers of Mycenaean power. They may have had some superior weapons, but in the arts they were inferior to those they conquered."

    Campbell "Orietal Mythology"

    I'm just wondering whether the 'Philistines' might have been Mycenaeans, displaced to the other side of the Med.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Maybe they were Minoans, which might explain the child sacrifice.

    Or a mixture.

    ReplyDelete
  77. I believe that its come down to this: You can side with the Palestinian (Arab) thugocracy and the Whirled or you can side with Israel.

    I'll cast my lot with Israel.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Simcha Jacobovici has promoted that very idea, bob, on his TV show, "The Naked Archaeologist".

    ReplyDelete
  79. You emmigrating, whit, following mat to Haifa?

    Sending a private financial contribution?

    Or just providing moral support?

    ReplyDelete
  80. Maybe they were Near Death Survivors.
    -
    al-ArtBell-Bob's Area 52

    Readers of Tim Kreider’s “Reprieve” reflected on their near-death experiences and their lives afterward. Below are some excerpts.
    Mr. Krieder has also added a brief response to readers, which can be read here.
    -
    I feel like I must be a robot or something. I was in a rather remarkable auto accident six years ago, which involved me accidentally piloting an old Honda Accord off of a 50-foot drop-off at 80 m.p.h. In the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. At midnight on a Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  81. al-Bob seeks immortal support.

    ReplyDelete
  82. You never know, rat, what the future holds.

    What I do know is what I have seen over my lifetime.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Why the Hell don't they have at least One Black Box that floats?

    ReplyDelete
  84. June 04, 2009
    Obama quotes verse 5:32, omits 5:33
    Mladen Andrijasevic

    President Obama in his speech said " The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind."


    I really find it odd that neither President Obama nor any of his advisors did not realize that the meaning of verse 5:32 is not clear until it is quoted together with verse 5:33 which follows it:

    005.032


    YUSUFALI: On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land


    005.033


    YUSUFALI: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter
    --
    -/


    American Thinker Article With Good Comments

    ReplyDelete
  85. Why the Hell don't they have at least One Black Box that floats?--
    -/

    I've wondered that too. Put one out on the edge of a wing somewhere, where it will easily detach at the first shock.

    ReplyDelete
  86. There is a history of US citizens taking an active role in the wars of ohters.

    The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, in Spain's Civil War a prime example.

    Another being the The Lafayette Escadrille.

    What can we expect private US citizens to do, in the Levant?

    ReplyDelete
  87. "Jim" has a less machiavelian interpretation of 'the speech'--


    Posted by: jim
    Jun 04, 03:02 PM

    Ockham's razor applies to this speech.

    Neither Obama nor his sycophants read, understand or believe in either the Koran or the Bible. They simply scan them using a wordprocessor to find what they think are appropriate phrases and plug them into the teleprompter.

    Obama then nestles the quotes amongst a half dozen straw-man arguments and gets back on Air Force One to meet Michele in Paris for a date.

    --


    heheh

    ReplyDelete
  88. Don't forget Johnny Jihad, Rat.

    ReplyDelete
  89. There were some Americans on Franco's side in Spain, too, though I don't think they were formed into their own formations. And, they aren't heard about as much. I have no sources at hand, just remembering stuff I read.

    ReplyDelete
  90. from "Rumours Floating Around Internet" files--


    Subject: Michelle Obama MISSING on Arab Country Trips! WHY?


    If you check Obama's last trip over seas, His wife left just after
    France as stated below. She has yet to accompany him to any Arab
    Country. Think about it. This was sent to me from a very good and
    Reliable friend. The pieces of the puzzle just keep on coming together!


    I did not write this...someone forwarded it to me...but my
    Wife lived in Saudi Arabia for two years, and from what she
    Tells me, it makes sense! --

    I was at a Blockbusters on Saturday renting videos,
    And as I was going along the wall, there was a video called
    "Obama".. I told the two men next to me that I wouldn't waste my
    Time. We talked about Obama. These guys were Arabs and I asked
    Them why they thought Michele Obama headed home following her
    Visit in France instead of traveling on to Saudi Arabia and
    Turkey with her husband.

    They told me she couldn't go to Saudi Arabia , Turkey or Iraq . I
    Said "Laura Bush went to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Dubai ." They
    Said that Obama is a Muslim, and by Muslim law he would not be
    Allowed to bring his wife into countries that accept Sharia Law.
    Just thought it was interesting that two Arabs at Blockbusters
    Accept the idea that we're being 'led' by a Muslim who follows the
    Islamic creed. They also said that's the reason he bowed to the
    King of Saudi Arabia . It was a signal to the Muslim world.

    Just thought you would like to know.


    ~Kim

    ReplyDelete
  91. I thot he bowed because he's a floppy eared Dufus.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Michael Jordan is handsome.
    Floppy Ears Pencil Necked Shorthair Guy Handsome?
    Surely, they jest.

    ReplyDelete
  93. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Do we have any rule or law about taking part in a foreign fight? Let's say Peru and Ecuador get in a war, and the USA is neutral, and I feel strongly Ecuador is in the right, am I breaking any US law by joining up?

    ReplyDelete
  95. No, but you're too damned old, Dummy!

    ReplyDelete
  96. Are them flowers African American Toes?

    ReplyDelete
  97. Hitler Demands Porsche Create "People's Car"--
    -/

    But, he didn't nationalize Porsche.


    ---

    al-Doug, I doubt I'd go fight for Sweden, much less Eduador. Besides, you're right, too old.

    I might be able to help run the propaganda ministry, is all.

    Them flowers is more phlox, but not a good photo. Phlox likes damp areas, you got to have that. Always around where the wet is in the spring.

    ReplyDelete
  98. I did not think that the question precluded US citizens assisting the Arabs, bob.

    In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they mobilized, first.

    An extension of the "Piece Activists".

    While folks like wi"o" tend to vocalize their support of the Israeli, self describing themselves as radicals, but one must wonder ...

    How far will they travel down that radical road, before their ideology and interests diverge or converge, culminating with action or not, as the case may be?

    ReplyDelete
  99. But he did supply Dr Prsche with the contracts, for various other products, tanks, self-propelled artillery pieces and the like, that kept his company operating.

    He also supplied the forced labor

    Small Wonder: The Amazing Story of the Volkswagen
    Nelson, Walter Henry
    c. 1965, Little, Brown and Company
    Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 65-10899

    From pp. 77ff:

    On Ascension Thursday, May 26, 1938, Adolf Hitler laid the cornerstone of the Volkswagen factory near Fallersleben, Lower Saxony. [...]

    ...Ferdinand Porsche was conspicuous in mufti, wearing a trench coat and no hat. [...]

    Porsche commuted between his Bureau in Stutgart and his job in Wolfsburg, overseeing the construction of his plant. [...]

    Nazi Germany honored its leading designer [Porsche] in 1938 with its own equivalent of the Nobel Prize. [...]

    Orders from Berlin forced the factory to devote part of its capacity to building other war equipment, instead of concentrating on automobiles. Yet another factor may have been a human one. Today [1965] the factory is manned by free men; in World War II, two thirds of its workers were slaves. [...]

    The labor force increased more than 600 percent, from 2732 in 1939 to 17,365 in 1944; the vast majority were foreign prisoners. Some were Russian and Polish prisoners of war; most were forced laborers from France, Belgium and Holland, and a few were court-martialled German soldiers sentenced to work at the plant. While treatment of the prisoners at Wolfsburg appears to have been better than elsewhere in Nazi Germany, it is a fact that many of those who arrived there were half-starved. ...Porsche designed a succession of tanks and other military vehicles, for which he was lavishly honored by the Third Reich.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Barely a month after seizing power (5), Hitler sent a note on industrial policy to the all-powerful German Automobile Industry Federation, whose chairman, as if by coincidence, was none other than Ferdinand Porsche. Concerning, as it did, the complete reorganisation of industry, the first draft of the text had already been submitted to all the leading lights of the German business world. The Führer was at pains to stress that the bourgeoisie had nothing to fear, owing to their unlimited support for the Nazi state. There was provision for aid for the speedy construction of infrastructure, tax benefits and export subsidies, availability of cheap raw materials and labour, and large credits. Was there anything more that anyone could want in the middle of a world depression ?

    BIG BUSINESS AND THE THIRD REICH

    Volkswagen’s history of forced labour

    ReplyDelete
  101. Them two little countries sure raised a lotta shit for quite some time.
    Nowhere near the Big Leagues in the Long War Derby, tho.

    ReplyDelete
  102. TUTT, TUTT
    -
    Forecast models introduce increased moisture into the trade
    wind flow as an upper trough deepens off the West Coast of the
    Continental U.S.. energy from this feature may also deepen a weak tropical
    upper tropospheric trough...TUTT...over the islands...which would
    weaken and elevate the subsidence inversion over the state as the
    increased moisture rides in along the trade wind flow.
    ---
    Those folks met their maker in the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Obramble Sprouts A Sporty Moustache--
    -/

    "Never Trust A Man With A Moustache"


    my grandmother always used to say

    ReplyDelete
  104. Never trust a man that sounds like a cheap recording of all the Grievances the left could imagine perpetrated by this rotten, stinking, worthless country.
    al-Doug always says.
    What a Sorry Ass Bore.
    Too Bad he's POTUS.

    ReplyDelete
  105. Wonder why those photos were never published before now?

    ReplyDelete
  106. Hitler Among The Crowds--

    Rally--
    -/

    Don't know, Doug. Somewhere it said the photos had been buried for awhile.

    ReplyDelete
  107. A Nazi Christmas Party, 1941
    After the Americans left, Jaeger packed the transparencies into 12 glass jars and buried them on the outskirts of town. In the years following the war, Jaeger occasionally returned to his multiple caches, digging them up, repacking, and reburying them. He finally retrieved the collection for good in 1955 -- 2,000 transparencies, all of them, amazingly, still in good shape -- stored them in a bank vault, and in 1965 sold them to LIFE. To date, only a fraction of the Jaeger collection has been published. (Pictured: Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials attend a Christmas Party in 1941, at the height of the second World War.)
    -
    WTF?

    ReplyDelete
  108. Life Musta had a Death Wish.

    ReplyDelete
  109. If Barry sees that rally, he'll set about figuring how to one-up it.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Maybe he felt he was at risk of being nailed as a war criminal. Held back until the mood of the times softened up a bit.

    Or, maybe he was waiting for a price rise, Hitler photos being a dime a dozen there for awhile.

    ReplyDelete
  111. The Surge
    -
    The invasion of Northwest Europe by the Allies, code-named Operation Overlord, saw more than 2 million troops land on French soil between D-Day and late August; hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides, and tens of thousands of deaths; and constituted one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history.

    ReplyDelete
  112. He'd put styrofoam pillars all up and down that lane, for starters.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Yeah, but Life bought em in '65.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Heh, my uncle Jerry, a psychology professor, who died of Alzheimer's, had this habit of always doodling moustaches on the high and mighty. I always laughed. I'd pick up a magazine, and there would be some world figure, with a beautiful moustache.

    He definitely would have Barry moustachioed.

    ReplyDelete
  115. There would be Marilynn Monroe too, with a moustache.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Yeah, but Life bought em in '65.--
    -/

    hmmm, don't know

    ReplyDelete
  117. desert rat said...
    I did not think that the question precluded US citizens assisting the Arabs, bob.

    In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they mobilized, first.

    An extension of the "Piece Activists".

    While folks like wi"o" tend to vocalize their support of the Israeli, self describing themselves as radicals, but one must wonder ...

    How far will they travel down that radical road, before their ideology and interests diverge or converge, culminating with action or not, as the case may be?



    From my "About Me"

    About Me
    I am a radical. I am a non-apologetic Jew. I do not apologize for the right to live. I do not apologize for the right for Israel to shoot back at attacks regardless of the amounts of collateral damage it inflicts, in fact, all attacks should be responded in kind 10 fold. I do not apologize for the right not to have my head sliced off by islamic nut jobs. I do not apologize to my gentile friends for warning them of these same islamic nut jobs for 40 of my 46 years on this planet. That being said. Welcome to my blog where I question the Arab right to 21 or 22 nations/states in the world and not one small corner of the arabian desert. I do support disproportional response to any attack on me, my family &/or my nation. If you do not share my right to live, to bad.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Am I a radical?

    As compared to what?

    I believe Jews have a right to BUY land in Jerusalem and BUILD a home...

    I believe that Jews have the right not to be bullied, assaulted, tortured and murdered because they are.

    Now the other "radicals" of this world believe in the right to hurt & murder those that disagree with them...

    ReplyDelete
  119. Atlas Shrugs Has A Good Take On The Proceedings--
    -/

    We got a megalomaniac muslim lovin' President, folks.

    Who is sprouting a moustache.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Here is what John Adams's son, John Quincy Adams, said about Islam:

    In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.--
    -/

    h/t Atlas Shurgs

    ReplyDelete
  121. Obama is hardly the first president to oppose Israeli settlements: Every administration since the 1967 war -- and that's now a total of nine -- has made essentially the same demand. Netanyahu, like previous Israeli leaders, has rejected it. Which raises an agonizing post-Cairo problem for Obama: What does he do now? How does he show that his administration really means what it says?

    Obama and his top aides have been debating this question for weeks. ...
    ...
    Year after year, decade after decade, American officials keep repeating U.S. opposition to the settlements -- and Israeli governments keep on building them. More than 120 settlements have been constructed over the past 42 years, and the Israeli population in the West Bank now totals 190,000 in the Jerusalem area and 289,000 elsewhere.

    For years, the official U.S. position was that the settlements were illegal under international law because they violated the Fourth Geneva Convention on protection of civilians in time of war. That document, adopted in 1949, specifies: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." The application of this article to Israel was endorsed by the administrations of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

    An emphatic statement of the U.S. view that settlements were illegal came from George H.W. Bush in 1971, when he was ambassador to the United Nations: "We regret Israel's failure to acknowledge its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as its actions which are contrary to the letter and spirit of this convention.
    "

    Israel's position was that the West Bank was not "occupied" but rather "administered" territory whose pre-1967 status had been unclear under international law. Jordan had ruled the West Bank from 1949 until 1967, but most nations hadn't recognized its sovereignty. To complicate matters further, the Israeli Supreme Court has described the West Bank as "under belligerent occupation."
    ...
    What's agonizing when you read this 42-year history is that settlements have created a powerful pressure group that opposes the limitations that Obama insists are necessary. For Israeli settlers who have been living in the West Bank for a generation, this is an intensely personal issue. The same is true, obviously, for the Palestinians whose homes and farms have been displaced by the thousands of settlers.

    This is the blood knot that Obama proposes to untie. He has a rare gift for seeking the middle ground -- on race, on national security, even on abortion. But it will be hard to stay in the middle on this one. Obama will have to articulate U.S. policy more clearly and emphatically than have any of his predecessors, and he will have to demonstrate that he means what he says. To make peace, he will first have to make some enemies
    .

    davidignatius@washpost.com

    ReplyDelete
  122. U.S. Sen. Inhofe calls Obama speech "un-American"

    Published: June 4, 2009

    WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jim Inhofe said today that President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo was "un-American" because he referred to the war in Iraq as "a war of choice" and didn't criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program.

    Inhofe, R-Tulsa, also criticized the president for suggesting that torture was conducted at the military prison in Guantanamo, saying, "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo."

    "I just don't know whose side he's on,'' Inhofe said of the president.

    ReplyDelete
  123. It is not for me to say, whether you're a radical, or not, wi"o". You have published that self-description. It is how you describe yourself.

    It is how you define yourself, not how I or others have come to define your behaviour, religion or ideology.

    White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel went to Israel and supported the IDF, back in the day. How many other US citizens make that trek?

    How many walk the talk?

    I really have no idea, and am not ill disposed to those that take the action, but wonder about its' scope and scale. And if it is scalable, to boot.

    And to bob's point, how do those numbers compare to the recruiting and fund raising efforts of Johnny Jihadi in the US?

    ReplyDelete
  124. heheheh--

    BAT YE’OR
    Pres. Barack Obama was elected, by an overwhelming majority, on a program in which America’s rapprochement with Islam stands pre-eminent. This is a legitimate political aim in the quest for world peace. The questions are: how to achieve it, and why there is no reciprocal effort from the Muslim world represented by the Organization of the Islamic World (OIC). This body could express its regrets for over a millennium of jihad wars, land expropriations, enslavements, and humiliations of the conquered non-Muslim populations on three continents.

    Obama’s Cairo discourse fits perfectly into his agenda. It flatters Muslim sensibilities and expresses the Muslim view of historical tolerance and cultural superiority over infidel civilizations.

    When Obama mentioned the “Isra” event, he referred to Muhammad’s ascension to heaven and his return in one night on a winged mule named Buraq. There he greets two Muslim prophets, Moses and Jesus/Isa, who are not the biblical figures. The image used here by the American president as a symbolic interfaith reconciliation between the three faiths is a meeting between three Muslim prophets and not the figureheads of the three monotheistic religions. Besides, the Isra event is not recognised by non-Muslims, and it didn’t happen in Jerusalem, as this name does not appear once in the Koran.

    The president’s speech is similar to many such declarations by European leaders. The question it raises is how much the West is ready to forgo truth and its basic principles in its supplication for obtaining peace with Islam. Clearly, the full Islamization of the West is the quickest way to obtain it. Obama’s political program in connection with the Alliance of Civilizations conforms to an OIC strategy that has already been accepted by the EU. In history, this policy has a name: the dhimmitude syndrome.

    -----

    Obumble appears to not know that about which he is talking.

    ReplyDelete
  125. Flying by the seat of your pants--

    Steven C wrote: "I think one key issue is whether the in flight conditions across the ITCZ is unusual or is it common practice pilots to fly through such weather conditions."

    Having spent many years flying from the West Coast to Australia, I can safely tell you that massive thunderstorms in the ITCZ are quite common. Going from 10N to 5N was always an adventure, and often not a pleasant one. The massive line of storms from west to east as shown on your image is not unusual in the Pacific. You always pass through in the middle of the night, so your greatest hope is a full moon that hasn't set yet. You have radar, but sometimes all you see is the entire top of the screen in yellow and magenta. Dispatch has access to satellite images, and sometimes that helps when you are trying to decide in which direction to deviate.

    But sometimes the lines of storms are so extensive that you can't go around them because of fuel, or ATC has concerns about you flying into the opposite direction track. Then all you can do is seat the Flight Attendants, turn on the continous ignition, pucker up, and pick through the line as best you can. Keep in mind that as soon as you enter the area you're in the clouds and visually blind. You can never climb above the big storms, but being higher helps clear some of the weather (but gives you less of a performance margin).

    One other thing to remember is the "dry thunderstorms" in the ITCZ. There's a lot of violent storms in that area that don't have enough moisture in them to show up on radar. There is a "turbulence mode" on your radar that picks up the doppler wind shifts, but you have to be in the lowest distance settings for it to work.

    Kenneth ----
    --
    -/

    from BC on the Airbus crash

    ReplyDelete