tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post8084655237652950183..comments2024-03-28T06:32:24.557-04:00Comments on The Elephant Bar: Hawks in the US Congress like John McCain and Lindsay Graham want war with Iran- Sanctions hard liners, such as Bob Menendez (D-NJ), backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its hundreds of Israel lobbies, are set on a course toward war with Iran. Only the US people can stop them.Deuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.comBlogger152125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-28449869638131423882013-11-14T21:32:54.166-05:002013-11-14T21:32:54.166-05:00If you had ever read the story, you would know how...If you had ever read the story, you would know how title was derived. I assume a modicum of cultural literacy of those who comment and criticize. I would have no problem with your ignorance of the mythology of Esau and Jacob. I would have no problem with your dismissing its historicity. But I do take exception to criticism based on nothing but a feeling based upon another feeling. allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-28227029239567011272013-11-14T18:55:21.830-05:002013-11-14T18:55:21.830-05:00There is also that wall the US has erected - down ...There is also that wall the US has erected - down by Mexico.Ashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688752302081088907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-27437342781149592132013-11-14T18:21:59.859-05:002013-11-14T18:21:59.859-05:00"YAWN""YAWN"allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-90941502103403640582013-11-14T15:30:50.378-05:002013-11-14T15:30:50.378-05:00.
"Worst"
Guy pisses me off so much I ....<br /><br />"Worst"<br /><br />Guy pisses me off so much I can't write straight.<br /><br />.Quirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00272168240606512672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-85739582812368134242013-11-14T15:27:29.158-05:002013-11-14T15:27:29.158-05:00.
The ACA was bad enough to begin with. Obama co....<br /><br />The ACA was bad enough to begin with. Obama continues to make it worse.<br /><br />Worse president ever.<br /><br />.Quirkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00272168240606512672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-46673875864744156052013-11-14T14:44:39.129-05:002013-11-14T14:44:39.129-05:00Dear End,
What are you going to do about it?
Pos...Dear End,<br /><br />What are you going to do about it?<br /><br />Post nonsense on a blog?<br /><br />Whippie….<br /><br />Meanwhile we will go back to building in Israel…<br /><br />:)wionoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-65868384491207900352013-11-14T14:34:26.398-05:002013-11-14T14:34:26.398-05:00Bibi is not religious, he is a secular Ashkenazi.
...Bibi is not religious, he is a secular Ashkenazi.<br /><br />To regard him as "Jewish" in a religious sense, nothing more than a libel.<br /><br />That Bibi may fit some amorphous definition of "Jewish", but that is an internal issue for that community to ponder. <br /><br />For the "Rest" of us, Bibi is a secular tyrant, in the Sultanate of Palestine.<br />Direct lineage back to the Ottoman Empire, through Mr Rothschild.End the Occupationnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-35119057938524374342013-11-14T14:26:53.907-05:002013-11-14T14:26:53.907-05:00But accurate.But accurate.Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-24093236202489822672013-11-14T14:09:00.074-05:002013-11-14T14:09:00.074-05:00According to the Israeli human rights organization...<i>According to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, there were 4,806 Palestinian security prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails at the end of September. A further 1,280 Palestinians were in prison for being in Israel illegally. Most Palestinian families have experience of a relative in prison.<br /></i><br />http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/13/israeli-soldier-stabbed-bus-afulaPanama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-20012595305913865652013-11-14T14:06:45.080-05:002013-11-14T14:06:45.080-05:00
– The Berlin Wall
Comparisons have also been ma...<br />– The Berlin Wall <br /><br />Comparisons have also been made between Israel’s “separation barriers” and the infamous Berlin Wall. Constructed by communist East Germany starting in 1961, the Berlin Wall separated the East German population from West Berlin. The Berlin Wall ran for some 87 miles and at its completion was almost 12 feet high. On its eastern side it was paralleled by a 110-yard “death strip” offering a “clear field of fire for the wall guards.” By comparison, the Israeli wall will at completion run over 400 miles, be 26 feet high, and be paralleled by a 200-foot “exclusion zone.”<br /><br />Like the Berlin Wall, Israel’s walls are designed to separate populations, but unlike the one in Berlin, the Israeli version also facilitates the systematic ethnic cleansing of elements of the Palestinian population. It is perhaps for this reason that the musician Roger Waters, a strong supporter of the boycott Israel movement, called the Israeli separation barriers “100 times more horrifying than the Berlin Wall.”<br /><br />Walls on the ground reflect walls that already exist in the mind. The Zionists came to Palestine with a wall already fixed in their minds. That wall existed as a conviction that anti-Semitism was inevitable and eternal. Only possessing their own state could protect the Jews from this incessant danger.<br /><br />Subsequent Palestinian resistance was almost instinctively seen by the Zionists as anti-Semitism. In time this led to 26-foot walls, which one can understand as the physical manifestations of the mental wall all Zionists carry with them. In this sense a culture of walls comes naturally to the Zionists.<br /><br />From a historical perspective, no physical wall can be permanent. Things change and walls crumble. The walls in our minds might prove more resistant to erosion. They can be very deep-rooted and passed on for generations. Yet even these barriers eventually give way. That suggests that Israel’s culture of walls will someday be breached. It is just a matter of time and suffering.<br /><br /><br />Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest; America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism. Lawrence Davidsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-7382447239184217052013-11-14T14:06:11.874-05:002013-11-14T14:06:11.874-05:00Some Related Walls
Historically, what sort of com...Some Related Walls<br /><br />Historically, what sort of company does Israel keep with all this wall building? Here are some examples set down in chronological order:<br /><br />– The walls of Jericho<br /><br />Jericho is a West Bank town that, according to the archaeological evidence, has existed for about 9,000 years. It is also a place dear to the hearts of militant Zionists, for it was there, according to the biblical narrative, that the ancient Israelites began the first bloody conquest of Palestine.<br /><br />According to the legend (but not the archaeological evidence), Joshua led an ancient Israelite army against Jericho and, on God’s orders, marched around the town walls six times blowing rams’ horns as they went. On the seventh revolution, Jericho’s defensive walls “came tumbling down.”<br /><br />Then Joshua burned down the town and, again on God’s orders, slaughtered every man, woman, child and animal (except for the family of the woman Rahab, who had betrayed the city by hiding Israelite spies). Finally, Joshua placed a curse on anyone who might try to rebuild the place. From a Zionist perspective, this may mark one of the few times that tearing down walls seemed preferable to building them up.<br /><br />– Wailing or Western Wall<br /><br />The Wailing, or Western, Wall was not a defense structure. Rather it was part of a courtyard adjacent to the Second Temple. The courtyard was originally part of an expansion program begun in about 19 BCE during the reign of Herod the Great. The Second Temple was eventually destroyed, along with much of the rest of Jerusalem, by the Romans in 70 CE. The Western Wall is all that is left. This destruction established the fact that it was not only Israelite armies that could bring down other people’s walls. Gentiles could do it too.<br /><br />Nonetheless, this provenance has made the Western Wall “the most sacred site” in the Jewish religion. When the Israelis took Arab Jerusalem in 1967 they turned the sacred site into a nationalist shrine. From that point on, there has been an unspoken assumption among militant Zionists that this holy of holies could stay Jewish only if the subsequently created barrier walls – and their accompanying policies of ethnic cleansing – stood firm. That makes the “separation barriers” the real symbols of modern-day Israel.<br /><br />– Ghetto Walls <br /><br />In modern times some walls have taken on a sinister character for Jews. The archetypal modern ghetto wall was constructed by the Nazis in 1940 to enclose the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, Poland. It was made of brick, stood about 10 feet high and ran for 11 miles. Like the Western Wall, only a fragment of this ghetto wall survives.<br /><br />While Zionists consider any comparison between their “separation barriers” and the walls that separated out Europe’s Jews anathema, some other very knowledgeable Jews see a connection. For instance, Sygmunt Bauman, a well-known Polish-Jewish sociologist who once taught in Israel but now lives in England, has likened Israel’s present-day barriers to those that surrounded the Warsaw ghetto. He believes that successive Israeli governments have not been interested in peace and “a younger Israeli generation was being raised on the understanding that the state of war and military alert was natural and unavoidable.” That would certainly fit well with a culture of walls.<br />Lawrence Davidsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-69292991054872092782013-11-14T14:04:01.417-05:002013-11-14T14:04:01.417-05:00
Israel’s Troubling Walls
November 13, 2013
The ...<br />Israel’s Troubling Walls<br />November 13, 2013 <br /><br />The Israeli government is planning to build more and more walls to keep Palestinians and Arabs out of Jewish-held territory, a troubling twist on a dark history when walls were used to lock Jews in, Lawrence Davidson observes.<br /><br />By Lawrence Davidson<br /><br />Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his government’s intention to construct another “separation barrier” - a large fortified wall or fence referred to by Palestinians as an apartheid wall – “between the West Bank and Jordan after completing walls on the Egyptian and Syrian borders.”<br /><br />Netanyahu is doing this for a variety of reasons, such as to keep Arab and other non-Jewish refugees from coming into Israel and, in the case of the West Bank-Jordan wall, to symbolize Israel’s ongoing control of the area.<br /><br />The original Zionist rationale for the state of Israel was that it would serve as a place of safety for the world’s Jews as anti-Semitism played out its allegedly inevitable and horrid destiny. Well, the problem today is that the policies of Israel are the major motivators of worldwide anti-Semitism, and because of these same policies, there is no place in the world more potentially dangerous for Jews than Israel.<br /><br />Thus, the Israeli fondness for walls. It may very well be that when all of this wall construction is finished, Israel will look like the world’s largest ghetto. And, within these walls, Israel’s leaders are busy making their ghetto religiously pure.<br /><br />Just this week buildings occupied by 15,000 East Jerusalem Arabs were scheduled for demolition. Those serving the notices to the 200 residential blocs had to be “escorted by Israeli soldiers.” Thus, while the walls discourage the non-Jews outside from breaking in, the home demolitions (along with a host of other nasty policies) encourage the inside non-Jews to get out.<br /><br />It makes not a bit of difference that all this wall building, to say nothing of the accompanying ethnic cleansing, is illegal. The Israelis don’t care. They make their own “law” based on their military capacity to enforce their will, and their perverted psychology – the belief that their past suffering (at least that of the Jews of Europe) somehow justifies imposing suffering on others.Lawrence Davidsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-63138717245071401012013-11-14T13:59:50.439-05:002013-11-14T13:59:50.439-05:00The motivation, the circumstance that drove Eden t...The motivation, the circumstance that drove Eden to murder the Israeli soldier ...<br />Well, since allen did not tell us ...<br /><br /><i>The stabbing occurred at about 8.30am on a bus en route from Nazareth to Tel Aviv. A paramedic who responded to an emergency call said: "A man aged about 18 was seated in one of the seats near the back of the bus. He was conscious, and had been stabbed several times all over his body. He was in a very bad state."<br /><br /><b>The attack follows a rise in violence in the West Bank, where 10 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli troops</b> and three Israelis have been killed since peace talks resumed in July. <br /><br /><b>In the past week, two Palestinians have been shot dead in separate incidents at checkpoints</b>. Security forces said one had brandished a knife and the other fired a flare gun or firework.</i><br /><br />What's that they say, about living by the sword ?<br /><br />Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-41321820452557970622013-11-14T13:53:51.620-05:002013-11-14T13:53:51.620-05:00Settlers torch Palestinian home after Israeli sold...<i><b>Settlers torch Palestinian home after Israeli soldier killed</b><br /><br />(Reuters) - Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian house on Thursday, leaving behind a message saying they were avenging the death of an Israeli soldier killed by a Palestinian the previous day, residents said.<br /><br />Several Palestinian children were treated for smoke inhalation and the house in the village of Sinjil in the occupied West Bank, was extensively damaged.<br /><br />"Regards to Eden, Revenge!" the attackers spray-painted on an outside wall of the home, a reference to Eden Attias, an Israeli soldier who was stabbed to death on a bus by a 16-year-old Palestinian in the Israeli city of Afula on Wednesday.<br /><br />The incidents add to simmering violence that has dogged U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians that resumed in July. Fourteen Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed since the negotiations began.<br /><br />Residents of the home that came under attack said four or five settlers struck at night, breaking windows and pouring petrol on the patio.<br /><br />"Suddenly there was fire everywhere, spilling into the kitchen," Ruwaida Dar Khalil, the mother of the household told Reuters. "We were terrified. We took our young children to hospital after they breathed in the smoke. Thank God they are all right."</i>Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-77501160252345807552013-11-14T13:50:44.879-05:002013-11-14T13:50:44.879-05:00If the Israeli did not use the corneas, why did th...If the Israeli did not use the corneas, why did they steal them?<br />It they did use them, how will the Israeli recover them, one is left to wonder ...<br /><br /><br /><b><i>Israel agrees to return stolen organs of dead Palestinians</i></b><br /><br />Israel has agreed to return organs of dead Palestinians harvested by its forensic pathologists during autopsies, Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh told Ma’an news agency on Wednesday.<br /><br />Head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss, had admitted harvesting organs from dead bodies without the permission of their families.<br /><br />“We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family,” Hiss said in an interview with an American academic in 2000. The interview was released in 2010 and part of it was aired by Israel's Channel 2 TV.<br /><br />The Channel 2 report said forensic experts harvested bones, corneas, heart valves and skin from dead Israeli soldiers, citizens, Palestinians and even foreign workers.<br /><br />The Israeli army admitted to organ harvesting but said the practice was no longer performed. “This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer,” the military told Channel 2.<br /><br />In the interview, Hiss described how his doctors would mask the removal of corneas from bodies. “We'd glue the eyelid shut,” he said. “We wouldn't take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids,” Associated Press reported.<br /><br />The Palestinian official said Israel will “soon be returning some of the organs,” Ma’an reported.<br /><br />Last Update: Thursday, 14 November 2013 Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-34140756913606345682013-11-14T13:46:35.452-05:002013-11-14T13:46:35.452-05:00You are talking out your ass, allen.
That was an ...You are talking out your ass, allen.<br /><br />That was an unnecessary and childish insult. allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-46925433232963238252013-11-14T13:42:28.952-05:002013-11-14T13:42:28.952-05:00The president as polymath
With ObamaCare? going d...The president as polymath<br /><br />With ObamaCare? going down in flames, the president deftly waltzes through foreign affairs.<br /><br />Russian defense, foreign ministers visit Cairo to discuss strengthening military relations between the two countries.<br />http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Egypts-Sisi-sees-new-Russia-defense-cooperation-331772allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-926568068838493142013-11-14T13:36:04.406-05:002013-11-14T13:36:04.406-05:00True as well.True as well.Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-37605441100148608432013-11-14T13:35:40.376-05:002013-11-14T13:35:40.376-05:00True enough.
It could.
Without occupation there i...True enough.<br />It could.<br /><br />Without occupation there is not way to be sure just what the Iranians would be doing.<br />The inspection regime, restarted, would end.<br /><br />The Straits of Hormuz would b a free fire zone.<br />a Global Economic Calamity.<br /><br />With no guarantee of ending the Iranian nuclear program, which if they are attacked, is sure to flourish in the aftermath.Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-19917664872456320242013-11-14T13:32:02.845-05:002013-11-14T13:32:02.845-05:00allen does not tell 'the rest of the story'...allen does not tell 'the rest of the story'<br />The motivation of the murderer, what drove him to killing the Israeli officer.<br /><br />He leaves that out, as does the US media when failing to identify the race of those assailants in Brooklyn. <br /><br />Different stories, same techniques.Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-1602322004302377622013-11-14T13:30:09.306-05:002013-11-14T13:30:09.306-05:00And the parrot speaks brilliantly as well.
US S...And the parrot speaks brilliantly as well. <br /><br /><br />US Secretary of State Kerry says imposing more sanctions on Tehran will indicate to the Iranians that Washington is not willing to negotiate in good faith.<br /><br />http://www.jpost.com/allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-72584253666907894122013-11-14T13:27:29.051-05:002013-11-14T13:27:29.051-05:00Mr. Netanyahu and the French just got their answer...Mr. Netanyahu and the French just got their answer. The man is a genius.<br /><br />Obama: Military strike could lead Iran to 'pursue nukes more vigorously'<br />http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Obama-Military-strike-could-lead-Iran-to-pursue-nukes-more-vigorously-331799allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-53540123267693720112013-11-14T13:24:18.463-05:002013-11-14T13:24:18.463-05:00Gee, why can't we all just get along?
Suspect...Gee, why can't we all just get along?<br /><br />Suspects admit to killing IDF colonel 'as a gift to the Palestinian people'<br />http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Suspects-admit-to-killing-IDF-colonel-as-a-gift-to-the-Palestinian-people-331749allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15605114251615293411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-8225587822633998162013-11-14T13:22:36.802-05:002013-11-14T13:22:36.802-05:00Prove = Proof
mea culpaProve = Proof<br /><br />mea culpaPanama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-17395958512112342942013-11-14T13:21:44.075-05:002013-11-14T13:21:44.075-05:00To say that Japan is not a threat, dismisses histo...To say that Japan is not a threat, dismisses history.<br />Forgets the 'Rape of Nanking"<br /><br />Dismisses Pearl Harbor.<br /><i>Casualties in the Pacific War numbered around 36 million or 50% of the total casualties of the Second World War.</i><br /><br />Dismisses the sacrifice of US service men in the Pacific<br />United States<br />111,606 - killed or missing<br />253,142 - wounded<br />21,580 - POWs<br /><br />Or course the Japanese constitute a threat.<br />Prove is in the tasting of the historic realities.<br />Rather than putting faith in fables and lies..<br /> <br /><br /><br />Panama Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15491745145575475548noreply@blogger.com