The New Republic

The piece sketches some powerful forces at play But it's absolutely stunning that this analysis does not mention Israel's own role in contributing to its own insecurity and what it could try to do to improve its situation in a rapidly changing Middle East. Could Israel achieve a peace treaty with the Palestinian Authority, to the detriment of the radical forces confronting it from within and beyond Palestine? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is it doing everything it could to promote this possibility, such as ending settlement expansion and abstaining from undermining the PA? Definitely not. There are other problems with the article, not least the blithe assumption that insecure Islamist governments in Egypt, Syria and possibly elsewhere will be too busy consolidating their positions to focus on confronting Israel. It is instead possible that such governments could overcome their insecurity and instability by seeking such confrontations, whether political or military. But a I'll leave such other problems with the piece for another day. Whether or not we are reaching the end of "40 years of peace," Israel may well look back upon recent years as a blown opportunity to deal with a relatively moderate Palestinian leadership and relatively amenable neighboring governments when it still had a chance. Never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, so to speak.

- Thunderroad

December 4, 2012 at 12:41am

add the potential civil war in Lebanon, and possibly imminent succession crisis in Saudi Arabia. I do not think the resignation of the entire parliament of the Ukraine has any connection with the Arab SpringForward FallBack.

- K2K

December 4, 2012 at 1:22am

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2195/israel_s_irrationality_is_our... " The facts you'd think would speak for themselves - but while Israel is not guilt-free, she has been consistently rational and more often than not, responsible towards not only her own people, but towards Palestinians also. Now the international community, Britain at the fore, is pushing Israel beyond the scope of what is reasonable. The failure to get the Palestinians around the negotiating table prior to a UN statehood bid is a blow to Israel's continued efforts to renew talks. A settlement moratorium was ignored by the Palestinians, as has been every offer to sit down with no preconditions, an offer made as recently as October 2012 by Prime Minister Netanyahu. So Israel has finally responded in a manner that befits David, rather than the Goliath it is made out to be. As the only Jewish state, the only legitimate and transparent and free democracy in the region, Israel has been pushed to taking an offensive stance rather than a defensive stance. This relates to the announcement of 3,000 new settler units and plans to develop the E1 area east of Jerusalem - a position that may well cut the Palestinian areas off from the West Bank. Is this the fault of some super right-wing expansionist plot? Not likely. It will cost Israel time, money, political and diplomatic capital and is the equivalent not just to kicking the can down the road, but to booting it over the fence and into a pond. When actions have been taken repeatedly to undermine the position of an ally whose actions are broadly reflective of a strong will for peace - then certain rational and responsible actions go out the window with it. Expanding and building settlements in areas that could and would be Palestinian areas is of course irrational and irresponsible, but the international community, Britain especially, has placed Israel in a position whereby it sees, from the world's feelings and dealings on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, that aggression seems to be consistently rewarded. In now talking about 'tough sanctions' against Israel for its actions, Britain espouses yet another inconsistent response to bringing parties in the region to the table - and has landed itself a position of increasing irrelevance and opposition to its allies in Israel and the United States. For Britain, Israel's actions are unpalatable. For Israel, Britain's reaction is unconscionable."

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 6:26am

From an Israeli perspective, it is quite doubtful that an Islamist Egypt and a post-Assad Islamist Syria are going to mind their own business with internal development issues. The Islamists are a clerical fascist crowd with an imperial agenda. The Obama administration and the Washington policy community are deluded if they think they can channel Islamist energies. The Islamists have minds of their own and will only make truces, not peace, with Israel and other perceived adversaries. Hey, I thought we were pivoting away from the Middle East.

- amidut

December 4, 2012 at 7:41am

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/e1-is-a-mountain-not-a-statement/ Paula R. Stern "E1 is a Mountain…not a statement" December 3, 2012, 9:22 pm "After a long day at work, I got a phone call from my mother who was upset about England, France and Germany condemning Israel and apparently threatening to withdraw their ambassadors over. And what is the world so upset about? No, no – not Syria and the violence there. Not Afghanistan; certainly not Iran. They aren’t condemning Turkish television fining the Simpsons for mocking God; or a social club at Harvard University saying Jews need not apply. No, it isn’t about Hungary cataloging Jews as they would cattle and certainly nothing about Iranian warships sailing towards Sudan. It’s all about a mountain that sits between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem between the city where I work and the home that I have made with my husband and children. YNET incorrectly claims that Israel building on E1 threatens to “bisect” the West Bank. I can’t help but wonder why then never took the 3 minute drive out of Jerusalem to realize that was just nonsense. Nevertheless, the news is filled with country after country condemning Israel for damaging chances for peace. Chances for peace? I can’t believe what I read. Hello? I want to shout. We were at WAR just two weeks ago. There are currently NO chances for peace on the table. In fact, there is no table. No, no, no – what we have is a mountain – not a very tall one, smaller even than the ones next to it on three sides. That’s all E1 is – a mountain. It is barren, but for a road that snakes its way up to a midpoint where a large police station has been built. No one lives there – no one has. Some trees, a lot of rocks, a traffic circle at the base – that’s all. And the history of this small piece of land? Like much of what some refer to as “the West Bank,” the land was once part of the Ottoman Empire – there were no villges, no homes, no dwellings. There’s no water there. Nothing. Sheep and goats sometimes graze on the lower areas of the hills, but that’s about it. When The Ottomans were replaced by the British, and still nothing but the camels and the sheep and the goats and, perhaps, an occasional ground hog traversed the land. In the 1920s, England cut off 2/3 of the land that was called Palestine and gave it to the Hashemites – and thus Jordan was born. The remaining 1/3 was ruled by the British until 1947, including that land that today we call E1. In 1948, the Arabs chose war over peace, death over life. They attacked and lost – but they got E1 – the barren land between Jerusalem’s eastern border and the west bank of the Jordan River. And they got the West Bank and for 19 years, they did not create an independent Palestinian State. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded to…to…well, if you believe their lies, it was created to fight the occupation that began in 1967 – what an incredible example of foresight, apparently. In 1967, it was clear that Egypt and Syria were preparing for war – the signs were all there; the rhetoric loud and clear. Israel launched a pre-emptive strike and sent a message to the Jordanians. We have no quarrel with you; stay out of the fighting. We will not attack you. The Jordanians sent back their message in two ways – in words or action, the message was the same – we fight with our brothers…and so they did. They attacked – as they had in 1948 and the result was the same – they lost. This time, E1 came into our hands. State-owned under the Turks; state-owned under the Jordanians, and now state-owned under Israel. Never the home of Palestinians; never an independent nation. No villages there, no buildings but for the one we built a few years ago…and the ones we will now build. The history of E1 is very simple. It is but a mountain that lies between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem. Arabs regularly travel on the highway between Maale Adumim and the Dead Sea – the highway remains. There is no bisecting, no blocking, no break in the passage. If you took the time to see the land, you would understand nothing because there is nothing there to understand. It is not an obstacle to peace. It is just a mountain, soon to be green and developed. That is the history of E1, except for one huge point that the world forgets. Before the Jordanians, before the British, before the Ottomans, before the Romans…the land was, as it is today – ours. It was the ancient land of Israel; it is the modern land of Israel. As for the countries of the world who say Israel threatens the peace – where were you two weeks ago when I ran with my children to our bomb shelter? Why did my son have to leave his wife to protect Israel’s south from a thousand rockets? That is what the world should be screaming about – 3 million Israelis coming under attack. Instead, they reward the Palestinians with a vote in the United Nations and threaten Israel with sanctions. It is clear the world supports a Palestinian state, but it is Israel that must live with it and so we shall – if we have to. But we will do it on our terms. We will build and the world will scream. But we have learned that the world screams easily for that which is so minor and ignores that which really matters. Dozens died today in Syria as they did yesterday and as they will tomorrow – but yes, certainly, let’s discuss a barren hill across from my back yard on which Israel plans to build some homes, a community center, perhaps a school. Can you imagine? We might build a school there! That is what the world finds today to scream about, to threaten and protest."

- K2K

December 4, 2012 at 8:10am

Satloff identifies five "urgent" policies for postponing return to "inter-state Arab-Israeli conflict." Oddly (or not), not one of them is a serious effort at ending the occupation and making peace with the Palestinian Authority. Strange priorities. As Yossi Beilin recently pointed out, nowhere, specifically including Oslo, have the Palestinians agreed that they must negotiate statehood with Israel. It is in fact not Israel's right to confer or withhold Palestinian statehood, anymore than it was the right of the Arabs to give or withhold Israeli statehood in 1948. Netanyahu's government claims that recognition of Palestinian statehood by the General Assembly is an "attack on Zionism." If that is the case, then it is time to be rid of Zionism as it has become a malignant force in the world. So oblivious is the clod Netanyahu to history -- and so enthralled by the Jabotinksy-ian claim that the Jews must take Palestine, all of it, from the Arabs by force -- that he does not even notice that his insistence that Palestinian statehood is inherently an attack on Jewish nationhood, and must come only with Israeli consent to be legitimate, is the identical claim to that made by the Arabs in 1948, that Jewish statehood is an attack on Arab nationhood and cannot legitimately come about without their consent. The Arabs were in the wrong then. Now Israel has decided to fill their shoes. Ironically, this comes after the Arabs have recognized the State of Israel within its internationally recognized borders, the 1949 armistice lines. Netanyahu's response is, of course, to up the ante by increasing Israel's violations of international law, all the while publicly begging the Arabs not to attempt to take Israel to the International Criminal Court. Erekat's very appropriate response to this is that those who don't want to end up in criminal court should not violate the criminal law. Up above, we see the through-the-looking-glass complaint that it is unconscionable that there be threat of sanctions in response to Israel's flouting of international law and a multitude of UNSC resolutions regarding its illegal settlement. For anyone not blinded by the Likud-AIPAC-Jabotoinsky-ian propaganda, it is INEVITABLE that international sanctions will eventually be the result of Israel's flouting of international law and its insistence that it be permitted to do this as a condition to peace. The only nations that voted against the recognition of Palestinian statehood were Israel, the US, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, and Palau. Only those besotted with Likud propaganda can fail to see where this is going to end. What is unconscionable is Israel's insistence on violating international law and that its violations be legitimized by the Palestinians as a condition to peace and the end of occupation. Netanyahu is digging Israel's grave, and, as the bankruptcy of the Likud settlement policy begins to come into view, all he can do is dig faster while the usual apologists complain about how unfair it all is to poor Israel. The Palestinians violated no law or agreement by asking the world to recognize the State of Palestine. The claim that additional and more provocative violations of law by Israel are the condign response is repulsive. Utterly disgraceful. Israel under the Likud does not want peace. It wants the Palestinians' land. As there can be no peace without ending the occupation the West Bank, to which Israel has no claim, Israel pursues war to avoid returning the land. The day of reckoning for Likud's fecklessness is coming. The next smart move for Abbas is to accede to the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, which would make Israel's ongoing settlement a war crime, and to the Rome statute, which would enable the ICC to prosecute Israeli crimes. As Erekat says, those who do not want to be held criminally liable ought not violate the criminal law. The PA should commence discussions with the US about what sort of security arrangements in Palestine would satisfy the US and then publicly declare its willingness to adopt such measures while refusing to negotiate about land. Israel has no legitimate basis for continuing to occupy the West Bank other than its security. It cannot legally occupy the West Bank to hold the Palestinians hostage until they agree to illegal Israeli territorial demands. Resolution 242 has declared the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war. Then Abbas needs to make that case to the world in order to create the necessary pressure for the UNSC finally to put teeth in its resolutions demanding that Israel refrain from settlement. However, may not in the end require UNSC action. One of the by-products of the dispute with Iran over its nuclear program is that sanctions by the US and EU that are not authorized by the UNSC, because Russia and China would veto them, have been calmly accepted by most of the world as legitimate. If the EU decides at some point to proceed with sanctions against Israel, because there is no way to overcome a US veto in the Security Council, they will be accepted, indeed applauded, by the world (with the exception of course of Israel, the US, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, and Palau). The day that Israelis are not welcome to take a holiday in Paris, London, or Rome, the war will be over. Israelis will not consent to live in an open-air prison, even if it includes all of Judea and Samaria. It is appalling that this is the outcome toward which the Likud rushes ever faster.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:05am

The "settlement moratorium" that the Palestinians supposedly ignored did not include East Jerusalem. Israel wants to claim that Jerusalem is different, that its status is different. But given that Israel has settled, indifferently, both within East Jerusalem and in the West Bank outside of East Jerusalem, there is no reason why its claim that Jerusalem is different should be or will be taken seriously by the rest of the world. The government of Israel has made its bed with a reckless policy of violating international law. Israelis, such as Paula Stern, quoted at length above, of course do not want to lie in that bed. They will have no choice. That is how the world actually works, not matter how much the Paula Sterns think that Israeli violations are acceptable so long as there are worse things being done elsewhere. It is a losing argument, but the losers don't seem to notice -- yet.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:13am

There will be no return to "interstate war", no Arab nation has the outside superpower providing the vast quantities of modern weapons needed to wage such a war. The military imbalance in the region is larger than it has ever been in the last 40 years. Syria's army is a shambles, Iraq is a well-organized militia, and the Egyptian army is more interested in its economic privileges than girding for battle (with US weapons?, don't think so). The real trends that are hurting Israel are even longer range. Demographic and diplomatic changes are going to overturn the Likud agenda in the next 20 years. The overwhelming UN vote (the only major nations that sided with Israel were the US and Canada) will eventually reach international sanctions in the next 1-2 decades. Meanwhile, the majority of Israel/Palestine will be Palestinian this decade. No one likes apartheid, no one except the Likudniks that post here I guess. If the Israeli goal is ensuring that a Jewish majority nation exist in that land and hold the majority of the real estate in 100 years, making peace with the Palestinians quickly is their only hope. Offer the 67 borders and generous compensation for the refugees, and truly equal states, the Palestinians will say yes. As long as you keep demanding the Palestinians become Zionists and accept Bantustans you will there is no partner for that nonsense.

- nayyer_ali

December 4, 2012 at 11:07am

There will be no return to "interstate war", no Arab nation has the outside superpower providing the vast quantities of modern weapons needed to wage such a war. The military imbalance in the region is larger than it has ever been in the last 40 years. Syria's army is a shambles, Iraq is a well-organized militia, and the Egyptian army is more interested in its economic privileges than girding for battle (with US weapons?, don't think so). The real trends that are hurting Israel are even longer range. Demographic and diplomatic changes are going to overturn the Likud agenda in the next 20 years. The overwhelming UN vote (the only major nations that sided with Israel were the US and Canada) will eventually reach international sanctions in the next 1-2 decades. Meanwhile, the majority of Israel/Palestine will be Palestinian this decade. No one likes apartheid, no one except the Likudniks that post here I guess. If the Israeli goal is ensuring that a Jewish majority nation exist in that land and hold the majority of the real estate in 100 years, making peace with the Palestinians quickly is their only hope. Offer the 67 borders and generous compensation for the refugees, and truly equal states, the Palestinians will say yes. As long as you keep demanding the Palestinians become Zionists and accept Bantustans you will there is no partner for that nonsense.

- nayyer_ali

December 4, 2012 at 11:07am

"Israel has no legitimate basis for continuing to occupy the West Bank other than its security." Roid - I wish you would say more about what, in your view, might be permitted under this exception, which is no trivial category. For example, would it permit the IDF to patrol the Jordan River border? Would it reserve to Israel any rights in the water from that river? How might Israel defend itself from the free inflow of weapons from neighboring countries? My concern is the vagueness of the exception you have created. Israelis, by their recent experience, tend to see everything as security-related, most of which Palestinians might well regard as encroachments on their sovereignty. A little clarity would help.

- JackR

December 4, 2012 at 11:08am

The twins Roid and Ali naysayer are back. No matter what the subject is these twins would inject their obsessions. What a waste.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 12:54pm

The twins Roid and Ali naysayer are back. No matter what the subject is these twins would inject their obsessions. What a waste.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 12:54pm

roid: In the past, you have asserted that the Palestinians' response is no different from any other group resisting colonization. Tell me this, if the Palestinians were so opposed to being colonized, why did they flood into the region during the days of the Yishuv? Another item, how many descendants of pre-Yishuv Arab residents of Palestine are alive today? Should a bunch of migrants from Arabia, Syria and the Maghreb and their descendants have a veto on the realization of Jewish aspirations?

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 1:01pm

http://www.newenglishreview.org/Richard_L._Rubenstein/Why_I_Have_Written_%22Jihad_and_Genocide%22/

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 1:02pm

sorry but punishing Palestinians in the West Bank for actions by Hamas in Gaza is nuts, even the leader of the Israeli settlement movement has said so. Punish Hamas, kill their leaders one by one, make Gaza into a living hell if the Gazans continue to choose war, but offer an alernative, invest in the West Bank, disband the far flung settlements, build housing for Palestinians on E1, build nice houses and schools for them everywhere you can, treat them as equals as much as possible. Hasn't Netanyahu ever heard of a carrot and stick? Roi, I disagree, Jerusalem must be whole...you can carve out a Vatican style enclave for the future seat of the Palestinian government and capital, but don't bisect the city. We don't need another Berlin in the world, especially in a city like Jerusalem which is one of the world's great showcases.

- blackton

December 4, 2012 at 1:06pm

There was a reason why I like Bill Maher . http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/bill_maher_on_israel_uncut_and_uncensored Bill Maher on Israel, uncut and uncensored by Danielle Berrin on Thu, Nov 29, 12:10 PM Earlier this week, I asked political commentator and comedian Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" to weigh in on the outcome of the 2012 election and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Below is the uncut, uncensored interview in which he talks about America's number one political priority, the negative edification of the Bible and what his (Jewish) mother taught him about anti-Semitism. Hollywood Jew: What was your big takeaway from the election this year? Bill Maher: It’s the year Obama won. I was for that, so you know, I’m very happy about it. I’m more relieved than I even thought I would be. HJ: Any lessons from a historic campaign that cost nearly $1.5 billion? BM: After the election, Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook page that Romney lost because early money in the swing states defined him, and that’s the whole reason I made my contribution to the Obama PAC. That’s what the Democratic strategists thought, and it kinda worked, because those numbers really never budged throughout the whole campaign. The media went through hoops covering all the ups and downs but people just basically made up their minds pretty early. HJ: What do you think will be the single most important issue facing the American people in the next decade? BM: The environment. Because if we don’t fix that, there are no other issues. HJ: What are your favored sources for news and commentary? Or what book or writer influenced you the most? I know it wasn’t the Bible. BM: (laughs) Well, it could be -- in a negative sense. Actually I took a bible course in college. It’s funny, making the movie “Religulous,” what I found out is that people who are religious have no idea about their own religion. They are completely clueless; they do not know what’s in the Bible. You could quote them something and say it was from the Bible and they would nod their head. I think if they read the bible, especially the Old Testament, I think they would be appalled. If you just told them it was something else, if you just said, ‘Read this story,’ you know, about this God – let’s call him Spor -- and how he’s wiping these people out and ethnically cleaning them for no apparent reason, how he does things on a whim and how he’s jealous; They’d go, ‘This is terrible.’ HJ: It’s no secret you’re not a great admirer of religion. But I’ve seen your live stand-up show and it seemed to me the religion you poke fun of the least is Judaism. Why is that? BM: We do poke fun of it quite a bit in “Religulous” but I mean it’s certainly not as dangerous as Islam and Christianity. Those are warlike religions. The Muslim world was conquered in a century. Mohammad died in 632; by 732, they were at the gates of France, they were in the Pyrenees. Jesus Christ, I mean, you don’t do that by handing out pamphlets and singing ‘Cumbaya.’ They conquered by the sword. HJ: So, in your opinion, Judaism is not as bad because it’s not as violent? BM: There’s a lot to be made fun of in any religion, and that includes Buddhism, by the way. A lot of my Hollywood friends think ‘Oh, Buddhism is a philosophy, it’s not a religion.’ It’s a religion because it includes crazy whack shit that doesn’t exist, that somebody made up, like reincarnation. OK. But I mean, Judaism, we had a lot of fun when we did “Religulous” [because] we went to the institute where they invent devices that allow people on the Sabbath who cannot use electricity to take an elevator or ride in a wheelchair. HJ: The Shabbes Elevator BM. The Shabbes Elevator. Stuff like that is just insane and it’s funny but it doesn’t really threaten anybody’s life. I did a joke in my act about, ‘I’d like to see Joe Lieberman as President because he doesn’t use electricity on Friday night and so if there’s a nuclear attack, he gets a Shabbes goy to launch our nuclear missiles.’ HJ: I know you’ve been to Israel and that you’re part Jewish. What’s your view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? How optimistic are you that they’ll find a two-state solution? BM: I’m optimistic that it’ll get worked out in the same way I’m optimistic that Marijuana will be legal all across the country; perhaps not in my lifetime, but at some point. But I’ve never hid the fact that I don’t think it’s a conflict where both sides are equally guilty. I’m more on the side of the Israelis; that’s why Benjamin Netanyahu did my show a few years ago, before he was Prime Minister. HJ: Why are you more on the side of Israelis? BM: Take this conflict; here, everyone in the newspapers, the pundits, they talk about it like it’s very complicated. It’s not that complicated: Stop firing rockets into Israel and perhaps they won’t annihilate you. I mean, it’s so crazy when you look at these images on TV. Ok, they just had a little war. It lasted a week like most Israeli wars do; the Israelis lost a handful of people, shot down most of the rockets, and the neighborhoods in Gaza are devastated. They’re rubble. They lost over 1,000 people and yet somehow Palestinians are celebrating in the streets? I don’t get this celebrating when you just totally got your ass kicked. HJ: The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out that many in the media tend to point out the disproportionate casualty count between Israelis and Palestinians, and he wisely wondered if there is a moral difference between attempted murder and successful murder. BM: It’s obvious that Israelis, in all of their battles with the Palestinians, show restraint. Because they have nuclear weapons. And if the situation was reversed, I don’t doubt for a second that Palestinians would fire them immediately. They’d use the maximum of what they have available and the Israelis don’t. HJ: There was a big debate this week in the Jewish world that arose from a dispute between two rabbis about whether Judaism should be more universal and humane or more tribal and self interested. But it is widely felt that the Israeli army conducts itself with deep concern for the humanity of the people they are fighting. BM: Let’s not forget the other side of this issue, which is, the Palestinians do have gripes, and most Israelis do not agree with the Netanyahu government on the settlement issue. [Israelis] want a two state solution. I don’t think anybody’s ever gonna be happy or the conflict will ever end before that happens and as many writers have pointed out, Israel faces the problem of becoming a minority Jewish state within their own country if they allow this to keep going. There has to be some solution. In a lot of ways, what we see in Israel is their government has been taken over by the equivalent of what would be the Tea Party in this country. If you talk to most people in Tel Aviv, I don’t think they’re for what the government is doing, but when it comes to self-defense -- Obama himself said the other day: There’s just not another country in the world that would allow missiles to be rained down on them without fighting back. What I find so ironic is that after World War II, everybody said, ‘I don’t understand the Jews. How could they have just gone to their slaughter like that?’ OK, and then when they fight back: ‘I don’t understand the Jews. Why can’t they just go to their slaughter?’ It’s like, ‘You know what? We did that once. It’s not gonna happen again. You’re just gonna have to get used to the fact that Jews now defend themselves -- and by the way, defend themselves better. I mean, this is a country, after all, that is surrounded by far greater numbers than their own [and] they are like two generations ahead in the military technology they have. HJ: Considering the reality of an unstable Middle East, an Iranian nuclear threat, a stalled peace process and a civil war in Syria, what’s the best thing Israel can do to engender moral support from the international community? BM: I think they’re over worrying about international goodwill. I hope they are, because it’s great to have but it doesn’t really feed the bulldog, you know? As my Jewish mother used to say, whenever there was a problem in the world, she would go, ‘Oh I know they’re gonna get around to blaming the Jews.’ [Laughs] And it’s kinda true. I mean, you know, it’s like somebody who’s always worrying whether everyone’s gonna like them -- Obama kinda had that problem in his first term -- but at a certain point you learn: You know what? A lot of people are not gonna like you no matter what you do, so just do what you’re gonna do. Just be yourself. And do what you think is right. And if they condemn you or hate you, that’s really kinda their problem. Copyright JewishJournal, All Rights Reserved

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 1:47pm

Worth repeating. HJ: Considering the reality of an unstable Middle East, an Iranian nuclear threat, a stalled peace process and a civil war in Syria, what’s the best thing Israel can do to engender moral support from the international community? BM: I think they’re over worrying about international goodwill. I hope they are, because it’s great to have but it doesn’t really feed the bulldog, you know? As my Jewish mother used to say, whenever there was a problem in the world, she would go, ‘Oh I know they’re gonna get around to blaming the Jews.’ [Laughs] And it’s kinda true. I mean, you know, it’s like somebody who’s always worrying whether everyone’s gonna like them -- Obama kinda had that problem in his first term -- but at a certain point you learn: You know what? A lot of people are not gonna like you no matter what you do, so just do what you’re gonna do. Just be yourself. And do what you think is right. And if they condemn you or hate you, that’s really kinda their problem.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 1:49pm

arnon1: Nice link, only one issue I would take with it. Rubinstein ignores the fact that there are Muslims like Sheikh Abdul Palazzi and Khaled Abu Toameh. There again, its not surprising given that they don't register to the VSPs who organize the confabs where he might meet them.

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 2:00pm

Hi Jack, In light of the history, I think Israel is entitled to demand any plausible security measures, including a demilitarized Palestine and sufficient control over the Jordan Valley to prevent illicit arming. The geography is such that access to the Jordan Valley can be by military road running between the Dead Sea (the north end of the Arava) and the Galilee, therefore not requiring a constant or visible Israeli presence between the Green Line and the Jordan. It would be diplomatically desirable for the security measures to have an international component and to be as unintrusive and unburdensome for the Palestinian population. However, that said, there is no plausible security justification for the settlements. None. This is why I wrote that the smart move for Abbas is to find out what sort of security arrangements the US would deem sufficient and simply agree to them publicly. If Israel's rational security needs are met, it has no other legal basis for occupying the West Bank. If it wants to, Israel can bargain with Palestine to keep settlements -- including trying to get the Palestinians to cede sovereignty to them or as part of Palestine. But then it will have to offer something that the Palestinians want in exchange, either land that they want west of the Green Line, or some recognition of their claims west of the Green Line, or some combination of both. This is precisely what Israel does not want to do, to give up anything of value to it (or to the Palestinians) in exchange for the legitimation of the illegal settlements. That's how mutual bargain for exchange works. You have offer something the other party wants to get what you want. It isn't free -- unless perhaps you are holding the other party hostage and trying to use that to extract what you want at no cost. That, however, is not bargaining. What Israel wants to do, and what Israelis have convinced themselves they are entitled to, is to hold Palestinian statehood and sovereignty hostage until the Palestinians will agree to abandon their claims west of the Green Line and concede to Israel the territory Israel wants east of the Green Line. This is simply not going to work. It has not worked and it won't work because the world has been telling Israel since the misbegotten colonial enterprise began that the settlements are illegal. Israel is not going to be able to keep them without conceding some things of great value to the Palestinians in exchange, and that does not mean giving the Palestinians back their own land, or scraps of desert ("land swaps") that no one wants, or recognizing Palestinian statehood, which is not within Israel's power to give or withhold. ____________________ blackton, I agree with you and have suggested that the way to solve the problem while keeping Jerusalem functionally united and open is to create a Palestinian enclave surrounded by Israel, so that Israel can exercise control at the border to the east. My point was that while Israel fervently wants Jerusalem to be regarded differently than the settlements, there is no reason any longer for the world to accept the distinction because Israel has not treated Jerusalem differently. It has settled where it has claimed sovereignty, in Jerusalem and environs, and it has settled in the West Bank where it has not incorporated the territory. Due to Israel's own misbehavior, it is now late in the day to claim that building in East Jerusalem somehow has a different character. Israel should have observed a distinction if it wanted a distinction to be respected. Either way, given that the status of Jerusalem is contested and was a matter consigned by the Oslo accords to final status negotiations and agreement, it is not unreasonable to expect that Israel stop changing the demographics if the result were the commencement of final status negotiations and during their pendency. The way Israel corruptly frustrates peace is by acting unilaterally with regard to matters that are supposed to be negotiated and then demanding that the Palestinians concede other matters that are supposed to be negotiated. This is how and why Netanyahu, faced with the possibility that negotiations might actually start, came up with the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as "the Jewish state" in advance of negotiations. There is of course no such thing in diplomatic practice. A state is recognized as the legal government of its territory, nothing more. We don't recognize different flavors of legality. The demand was preposterous, at least that is until Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, helpfully explained in an Op-Ed in the New York Times that what the demand actually meant is that the Palestinians had to concede their claimed right of return. But the rights of refugees was also a matter specifically consigned to the final status agreement. Thus, to render negotiations impossible when it appeared that they might occur, Netanyahu was demanding that the Palestinians concede in advance a key claim that was to be part of the final negotiation. What Israel wants is for the Palestinians first to concede everything of importance to Israel, Jerusalem, refugees, territory, and for the negotiations then to commence. None of this has anything whatsoever to do with Israel's legitimate security needs. Those are used as an excuse to frustrate peace so that Israel can continue to usurp Palestinians in Palestine.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 2:26pm

sighthnd asks: "Should a bunch of migrants from Arabia, Syria and the Maghreb and their descendants have a veto on the realization of Jewish aspirations?" There are no legitimate Israeli aspirations in the land that the UN partition gave to the Arabs and that they still occupied after the armistice. If there was any doubt, UNSC 242 settled it. You simply cannot accept that the fraught question of sovereignty in Palestine was settled in 1947 with the UN partition plan, and that this was very much the outcome sought by the Jews, so that they could have a majority state, and resisted by the Arabs. Israel now wants the impossible, to have a demographically divided country so that it can have a Jewish majority yet still to have the freedom to settle and control the Arab part of the partition. That simply cannot work. It is called apartheid. Yes, Israel can make claims on behalf of Jews displaced from east of the Green Line in the War of Independence and its after-math. But it cannot claim any sovereignty there. The downside, of course, is that if Israel wishes to press its claims on behalf of displaced persons east of the Green Line it has no response to Arab claims on behalf of displaced persons west of the Green Line -- the claimed Palestinian right of return. It is irrational for Israel to believe that it can have it both ways, extinguishing Palestinian refugee claims while asserting Jewish refugee claims. Arab migrants? So what? They weren't illegal migrants. They came from within the Ottoman Empire to other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Do you think that if New Yorkers move to California they don't have the same rights as Americans that they did in New York? Whether the Arab inhabitants of Palestine in 1947 were descended from migrants is of no importance whatsoever. Almost all of the Jews of Palestine in 1947 were migrants or descended from migrants. Your argument goes nowhere.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 2:36pm

I agree, again, with nayyer_ali. Even at the risk of giving arnon a wisp of a reason to make another of his fatuous remarks. He does nothing else, so it hardly matters.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 2:39pm

"Arab migrants? So what? They weren't illegal migrants. They came from within the Ottoman Empire to other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Do you think that if New Yorkers move to California they don't have the same rights as Americans that they did in New York?" Except that New Yorkers moving to California don't turn around and demand that they have the right to deny rights to the people who created what attracted them to California. "You simply cannot accept that the fraught question of sovereignty in Palestine was settled in 1947 with the UN partition plan" UNSC 242 says "territory," not "all territory" or "the territory," just "territory." Any amount of withdrawal from territory would satisfy UNSC 242, so it says nothing about what the what rights the PNM has. The armistice ending the war in 1949 explicitly stated that the border was not to be the final word. The Arabs intended that that clause would permit them to retake land from Israel later, which they thought they were going to do in 1967. Instead, 1967 resulted in changing the boundaries in Israel's favor. "There are no legitimate Israeli aspirations in the land that the UN partition gave to the Arabs and that they still occupied after the armistice." No legitimate aspirations in Hebron, the second holiest site to Judaism after Jerusalem? No legitimate aspirations to the Old City of Jerusalem? No legitimate aspirations to the Western Wall? "Israel now wants the impossible, to have a demographically divided country so that it can have a Jewish majority yet still to have the freedom to settle and control the Arab part of the partition. That simply cannot work. It is called apartheid. " "Greater Israel" would have that effect. Israeli annexation of the settlement blocs, even without compensating the PNM, would not. The largest obstacle to that happening is that the Palestinian polity, from both ends of the PNM, views everything it can get as a tool with which to advance the cause of eliminating Israel.

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 3:21pm

"Except that New Yorkers moving to California don't turn around and demand that they have the right to deny rights to the people who created what attracted them to California." You seen unconscious of the fact that this is exactly the accusation that the indigenous Arabs levied against the Jewish migrants to Palestine -- that they came to Palestine and turned around to demand political changes in their favor. "Instead, 1967 resulted in changing the boundaries in Israel's favor." No, it did not. This is an Israeli fantasy. The UNSC has made clear repeatedly that Israel cannot unilaterally annex any territory in the West Bank. The history of 242 shows that the modifications, if any, to the Green Line were meant to be in the nature of border "rectifications," not wholesale changes and in any case by negotiation, not by unilateral Israeli action. Negotiation means you have to give as well as get, which is exactly what Israel refuses to entertain. In the minds of Israelis, giving means giving up a part of what has been taken illegally. "We will give back this part of what is yours in exchange for your allowing us to keep the rest." "No legitimate aspirations in Hebron, the second holiest site to Judaism after Jerusalem? No legitimate aspirations to the Old City of Jerusalem? No legitimate aspirations to the Western Wall?" Israel has no claims to sovereignty in the parts of the Arabs partition that were still occupied by the Arabs in 1948. They are as much Palestine as the land west of the Green Line is Israel. If Israel has claims to sovereignty in the Arab partition, then the Arabs have a like claim in the Jewish partition. That is called the "one-state solution," which is absolutely rejected by Israel for demographic reasons. Jerusalem, which was not in the Jewish or Arab partition, is contested and is to be resolved, by negotiation, in a final status agreement. "Israeli annexation of the settlement blocs, even without compensating the PNM, would not." 242 and subsequent resolutions make absolutely clear that Israel cannot annex the settlement blocs, and it has not done so. It has opted for a creeping de facto annexation all the while denying that this is what it was doing. The Arabs properly said that Israel was unilaterally doing that which was forbidden. In reply, Israel claimed the settlements were "temporary," and hence not in Israel's view a violation of international law because they could be removed in a final settlement. Now it refuses to do so. The Arabs said Israel was lying and corruptly violating the Oslo accords. The Arabs were right. The Arabs have no prospect of eliminating Israel and the Palestinians have abandoned the aspiration to do so. That some may yearn to do so is as unimportant as the fact that right-wing Israelis yearn for a Greater Israel that they cannot have. Political settlement is just that, not a reformation of the human heart. The Palestinians have recognized Israel. Abbas has recently affirmed that he recognizes that Israel is sovereign west of the Green Line and that, for him, there is no going back to the place he was born. It is Israel that refuses to make peace, and then complains that there is not peace, therefore it cannot make peace. You have a very selective grasp of history, sighthnd. You recall all the pieces that you like and cannot remember the pieces, such as the UN partition plan and the other acts of the UN, that you don't like, or even just the aspects of them that you don't like since the partition plan was the project of the Jews, not of the Arabs. No Israel wants a re-partition to its further advantage. It cannot have that. It is either one state or two states. Not one and a half states for Israel and half a state for the Palestinians. At least in the real world, that is. Israelis and apologists for them can moan about that very simple fact as long as they want, but they will only succeed in bringing disaster upon Israel. They are the only ones who believe the tendentious Israeli retelling of history in which the just outcome is the 1 1/2 and 1/2 solution.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 4:07pm

"Nice link, only one issue I would take with it. Rubinstein ignores the fact that there are Muslims like Sheikh Abdul Palazzi and Khaled Abu Toameh. There again, its not surprising given that they don't register to the VSPs who organize the confabs where he might meet them." I am sure he knows that there are Arabs who would accept a Jewish State and who value the liberties they find in Israel. However, they are a minority and will not affect the movement towards Islamization in the Muslim world. I wish it were otherwise. http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/128648/sec_id/128648 Here is another link to the same writer: "Hannah Arendt, the Holocaust, and the State of Israel" by Richard L. Rubenstein (December 2012)

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 4:26pm

"Except that New Yorkers moving to California don't turn around and demand that they have the right to deny rights to the people who created what attracted them to California." Excellent point which will be lost on Roido. He doesn't engage in order to learn anything. His mind is made up which is why I stopped taking seriously anything he writes in fact I stopped reading most of his posts.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 4:30pm

"You have a very selective grasp of history, sighthnd. You recall all the pieces that you like and cannot remember ..." As do you.

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 4:32pm

Please, moron1, do me the favor of not reading my posts. All that follows are your inane comments (informed by the fact that you haven't read them). Arab migrants to Palestine were migrants within the polity, the Ottoman Empire, of which they were citizens. Objecting to a Jewish separatism is not the same thing as denying the Jews rights. But it doesn't matter any longer. The dispute about a separate Jewish state was resolved by the United Nations in 1947. If Israel wants to annex the West Bank, it will have to give all of the citizens there equal political rights. They, apparently, would be willing to consider that. It is the Jews, not the Arabs, who insist on denying someone else rights in Palestine -- the Arab Palestinians' right to their own state in the land allocated to them by the UN, the equivalent of the Jewish Palestinians' right to a state in the land allocated to them by the UN. As for annexing the pieces of the Arabs' land that Israelis covet, that has already been forbidden. To deny that reality is a prescription for endless war, which is exactly what the Likud government wants, endless war so that it can maintain its territorial ambitions and not have to recognize that they are for nothing.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 4:39pm

''242 and subsequent resolutions make absolutely clear that Israel cannot annex the settlement blocs, and it has not done so." That does not make doing so apartheid. "The Arabs have no prospect of eliminating Israel and the Palestinians have abandoned the aspiration to do so. That some may yearn to do so ..." ... is completely relevant if that some includes those who are in control. As of now, that describes both parts of the PNM, Hamas AND Fatah. You keep claiming that Abbas speaks about recognizing Israel and declare that nothing further is needed to ascertain his motives. (Why do you accept Abbas' declarations but not Netanyahu's about the need for a Palestinian state?) What the PNM does recognize is a fantasy is getting the world to knowingly collaborate with their efforts to eliminate Israel. Therefore, in order to secure international cooperation with its efforts, Fatah claims in international fora that it does not object to Israel for its existence, but only to the fact that Israel occupies its land and bars Palestinians from their erstwhile homes. Resolving those gripes would then provide the tools to eliminate Israel directly, with at worst a "tsk tsk" from the international community. Could you cite some evidence that this is not so? How would Fatah behave if its profession to accept Israel's existence is genuine and how would they behave if it was just a tactical ploy?

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 4:54pm

"You seen unconscious of the fact that this is exactly the accusation that the indigenous Arabs levied against the Jewish migrants to Palestine" Did the pre-Yishuv Arab residents of Palestine, who by the way NEVER called themselves Palestinian, do anything to attract the Zionists? On the other hand, the Yishuv did plenty to attract Arabs from the rest of the Ottoman Empire. The Yishuv drained the swamps and developed agriculture and industry in Palestine. Economic activity was substantially larger in early-yishuv Palestine than in the surrounding Ottoman provinces and later British and French Mandates, which almost certainly attracted migrants.

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 5:12pm

"You seen unconscious of the fact that this is exactly the accusation that the indigenous Arabs levied against the Jewish migrants to Palestine -- that they came to Palestine and turned around to demand political changes in their favor" Jewish immigration into Palestine was a condition in the British mandate as it was granted by the League of Nations. In fact, British mandate was given on the understanding that the Brits were to administer the mass immigration and preparation for Jewish statehood, on BOTH banks of the Jordan river, BTW. What the Jewish immigrants did was done with the encouragement of the league of Nations, and I presume, enshrined in International Law. The Arabs do not recognize the authority of the league of Nations on this territory. As they do not recognize the UN's authority to pass Resolution 181. It is not an accident that that the recent upgrading resolution in the UN took place on 29 November. In Arabs' minds, it symbolically reverses the flow of history and International Law, as it cancels and vitiates the resolution that favoured the establishment of a Jewish state on November 29, 1947.

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 5:31pm

"In fact, British mandate was given on the understanding that the Brits were to administer the mass immigration and preparation for Jewish statehood, on BOTH banks of the Jordan river, BTW." Creating a separate state east of the Jordan was one of the worst things done to the Jews. Not because there is any reason for Zionism to include the east of the river, but because doing so shrunk the denominator of what is the "Palestinian homeland." With the shrunken denominator, the PNM, and all its useful idiots, can drone on and on about how the PNM is willing to cede "78%" of their homeland.

- sighthnd

December 4, 2012 at 5:42pm

malahat, I heard Michael Oren on the radio yesterday (or Sunday) and for a very smart guy he was having real problems trying to rationally justify the Netanyahu government's reaction. There's obviously a lot of symbolic finger gestures and the like going on at the present moment, but back in the real world, if your genuinely serious problem is Hamas, why wouldn't you want to support something that gives Abbas and the PA more legitimacy? Why not be imaginative for once and say something on the lines of, "We are not sure of what the Palestinian goals are in this UN procedure, but as we hope for a peaceful neighborly relationship with a Palestinian state one day, Israel is not going to hinder this particular act of recognition. None of the outstanding problems on the ground are solved by this act, however. We would also like to remind all members of the General Assembly of the following fact: that national status brings with it duties as well as rights, and we hope the Palestinians will be as attentive to the former as to the latter."

- ironyroad

December 4, 2012 at 6:07pm

So what if the pre-Yishuv attracted Arab migrants? Does this somehow imply that the Arabs who were there in 1947 and allocated a piece of Palestine by the UN don't have the right to be there? Because, despite being legal migrants within the Ottoman Empire, they were attracted by the commercial opportunities created by Jews or by European money flowing into the region? Noga has missed the implication of the phrase of mine that she quotes. I did not cite with approval, but with disapproval, the Arab accusation that the Jews came and then sought political changes to their advantage. I was pointing out the irony that this baseless charge was precisely the one that sighthnd levies against Arab migrants to Palestine, that they came and then sought political changes to their advantage. Everyone has the right to seek political changes to their advantage by non-violent and non-corrupt means. As for the fact that Arabs didn't refer to themselves as Palestinians before Palestine became a distinct political jurisdiction, again so what? When a political jurisdiction is created, people who live there tend refer to themselves by that jurisdiction. Prior to the Palestine Mandate, it had not been a distinct polity since the Roman era. I don't imagine that New Yorkers referred to themselves as New Yorkers while the Dutch were in charge. Vermonters weren't Vermonters since Biblical times. But they are now, and not New Yorkers as they would be if Vermont had not been separated from New York, and they have been since they began to consider themselves such. Nor is the fact that there is no history of distinctly Palestinian ethnicity of any particular importance. The reality is that the Palestinian Arabs live there. If there is not to be one state -- as Israel insists, since 1947, there cannot be -- then there have to be two. How the people there choose to identify themselves, whether as ethnic Palestinians, or Arabs, or as North Polers, is nobody elses business, just as it is not the business of the Arabs whether Israelis choose to consider themselves the inhabitants of a Jewish state. Everyone gets to define his or her own identity and affiliations. As noga points out, the Arabs did not recognize the authority of resolution 181 in 1947. They were wrong to deny the authority of the UN General Assembly and their denial has come to nothing. Now the Government of Israel has purportedly "rejected" the General Assembly's recognition of Palestinian statehood. Israel is just as wrong, and its denial of UN authority will also come to nothing. Israel has no more authority to deny world recognition of Palestinian statehood, and UN authority, than did the Arabs in 1947-48. Indeed, by unthinkingly adopting the same stance as the Arabs, because the world acted without Israel's consent, Israel only embarrasses itself and shows ever more clearly that it has become an outlaw, as were the Arabs during the years they denied the existence and legitimacy of Israel. _________________________ sighthnd says: "You keep claiming that Abbas speaks about recognizing Israel and declare that nothing further is needed to ascertain his motives. (Why do you accept Abbas' declarations but not Netanyahu's about the need for a Palestinian state?)" I haven't said one way or the other what is necessary to ascertain Abbas's motives. His motives are in any event not of critical importance. The question is whether, given the opportunity, he will accept the end of Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine on the basis of measures sufficient to ensure that Israel is never threatened by or from Palestine. He either will or he won't. I accept Abbas's declaration that he accepts the legitimacy of Israel west of the Green Line because I don't see him doing anything contrary to that declaration, and he puts himself at no small risk to make it. I don't accept Netanyahu's claim to be willing to see the creation of a Palestinian state in the land granted to the Palestinians because (1) he has never said any such thing but insists on Likudnik territorial claims in Palestine, (2) he is quite evidently doing whatever he can to frustrate the possibility of peace, (3) Israel under his government is in flagrant violation of international law, and (4) Netanyahu claims the right to continue violating international law until the Palestinians cede to Israel land that does not belong to Israel. Netanyahu's actions give the lie to his rhetoric. The question, really, is why anyone who is not stupid or a witless believer in Israeli propaganda would believe a single word Netanyahu says about anything. If the man said it is raining outside, I would have to look out the window.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 6:22pm

"Creating a separate state east of the Jordan was one of the worst things done to the Jews. Not because there is any reason for Zionism to include the east of the river, but because doing so shrunk the denominator of what is the "Palestinian homeland." With the shrunken denominator, the PNM, and all its useful idiots, can drone on and on about how the PNM is willing to cede "78%" of their homeland." This is ridiculous, sighthnd. The partition of Palestine was drawn, over the objection of the Arabs, FOR THE PURPOSE OF GIVING THE JEWS A POLITICAL MAJORITY IN THEIR SECTION even though they were otherwise still a minority in Palestine, whether conceived of as the original Palestine Mandate or the piece that remained after the creation of Jordan. Whether the portion not given to the Jews to satisfy Jewish political goals of self-determination was divided into one, two, or thirty Arab states is not the business of the Jews. The partition is over. It is not 1947 any longer. While it might have been argued in 1967 that Israel gained the right to annex the West Bank through victory in a defensive war, resolution 242 eliminated that possibility. The same authority, the United Nations, that carved Israel out of a larger Arab-dominated polity in order to satisfy Jewish aspirations for self-determination said that Israel cannot have the West Bank as the spoils of war. That is that. End of story. And there is no doubt that the UNSC regards the settlements as illegal. It has said so multiple times. Israel has chosen to defy the UN, just as the Arabs did in 1947. Israel's defiance will be just as futile. The world moves slowly, but it rumbles along inexorably. It will rumble Israel out of the West Bank. The only reason it has no happened already is that Arab violence and threats of violence made it impossible for the world to insist upon Israeli compliance. The calls in the UK for sanctions against Israel in response to its defiance are just the beginning.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 6:34pm

It seems to be generally agreed that at the time of partition the Jews constituted only a third of the population west of the Jordan and owned an even smaller percentage of the land there.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 6:41pm

"Netanyahu could have limited the damage by choosing a more statesmen like and less inflammatory response..." "Limiting damage," Malahat is not Netanyahu's forte. He is a kind of Roido who thinks that whatever he says is true, and whatever he does is right.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 6:49pm

This hack, this moron, calls others "moron?" "Please, moron1, do me the favor of not reading my posts. All that follows are your inane comments (informed by the fact that you haven't read them)." He is just a "hoot and a holler."

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 6:55pm

Roido the hoot and holler says: "Arab migrants to Palestine were migrants within the polity, the Ottoman Empire, of which they were citizens." This is so ignorant that it disqualifies the writer from saying anything on this subject. In the Ottoman Empire and under Islam there was no such thing as "citizens," any more than there was such a concept in Christianity especially in the East. "Citizenship" is modern Western concept.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 7:01pm

I'm not calling "others" moron, arnon. I'm calling you a moron, because that is they way you behave here. Here's yet one more example of you talking out of your ass: Says arnon: "This is so ignorant that it disqualifies the writer from saying anything on this subject. In the Ottoman Empire and under Islam there was no such thing as "citizens," any more than there was such a concept in Christianity especially in the East." Says wikipedia: "Nineteenth century The three major European powers, Great Britain, France and Russia (known as the Great Powers), took issue with the Ottoman Empire's treatment of its Christian minorities and increasingly pressured the Ottoman government (also known as the Sublime Porte) to extend equal rights to all its citizens. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government implemented the Tanzimat reforms to improve the situation of minorities, although these would prove largely ineffective. In 1856, the Hatt-ı Hümayun promised equality for all Ottoman citizens irrespective of their ethnicity and confession, widening the scope of the 1839 Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane. The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the Kanûn-ı Esâsî (meaning "Basic Law" in Ottoman Turkish), written by members of the Young Ottomans, which was promulgated on November 23, 1876. It established freedom of belief and equality of all citizens before the law." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Greeks Says Merriam-Webster: Entry Word: citizen Function: noun Text: 1 a person who owes allegiance to a government and is protected by it Synonyms national, subject Related Words compatriot, countryman; inhabitant, native, nonimmigrant, resident Near Antonyms foreigner, stranger; immigrant, nonnative Antonyms alien, noncitizen So you see, arnon, once again you are merely sputtering with rage without understanding the first thing you are talking about. Why? Because, while you like to be insulting, you cannot bear being insulted in return. You're a child, arnon. Grow up. ______________________ PS I don't speak Ottoman Turkish, or Greek, or Arabic. I speak English. When I use English words, they have English meanings. "Citizen" is an English word. Like many if not most English words, it has many layers of meaning depending on how it is used and the context. In this context, I used it to refer to the legal relationship between persons, in particular Moslems, who lived in the Ottoman Empire and the government of the Ottoman Empire. Merriam-Webster finds my usage perfectly ordinary. If you learn to read and write English, you will too.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 7:24pm

Roido is so ignorant that he has to go to an anonymous source like Wikipedia not known for its accuracy to answer a simple question. One also will not find the answer to what the concept of citizenship is by reading a dictionary. Dictionaries define words through limited criteria: they either talk about historical usage as the OED does or they look at word conceptually as all common dictionaries like Merriam-Webster do. It's useless to argue with and ignorant asshole like Roido. I'll just leave him to his ignorance.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 7:33pm

To everyone else: Wikipedia is an anonymous "encyclopedia" and some of its articles are better than others. One way of judging its article is by looking at its sources in its footnotes. The relevant article on the "citizenship" or its equivalence in the Ottoman Empire is not found under "Ottoman Greeks" which was presented above but under Millet (Ottoman Empire): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet_(Ottoman_Empire)#Effect_of_nationalism It's complete original version is here: http://www.osmanischesreich.de/ "Millet is a term for the confessional communities in the Ottoman Empire. It refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which communities (Muslim Sharia, Christian Canon law and Jewish Halakha law abiding) were allowed to rule themselves under their own system. After the Ottoman Tanzimat (1839–76) reforms, the term was used for legally protected religious minority groups, similar to the way other countries use the word nation. The word Millet comes from the Arabic word millah (ملة) and literally means "nation". The Millet system of Islamic law has been called an early example of pre-modern religious pluralism.[1] The concept was used for the communities of the Church of the East under the Zoroastrian Sassanid Persia in the 4th century before establishment of the Ottoman Empire." There is much more to say about this, but the above should make it clear that the western concept of "citizenship" which depends on the notion of "individualism" was and is foreign to the Ottoman and many countries in the Middle East including Israel: "Modern use" "Today the millet system is still used at varying degrees in some post−Ottoman countries like Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Greece (for religious minorities). It is also in use in states like Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh which observe the principle of separate personal courts and/or laws for every recognized religious community and reserved seats in the parliament." there is more: "Israel, too, keeps a system based on the Ottoman-derived Millet, in which personal status is based on a person's belonging to a religious community. The state of Israel — on the basis of laws inherited from Ottoman times and retained both under British rule and by independent Israel — reserves the right to recognise some communities but not others. Thus, Orthodox Judaism is officially recognised in Israel, while Reform Rabbis and Conservative Rabbis are not recognised and cannot perform marriages. Israel recognised the Druze as a separate community, which the Ottomans and British had not — due mainly to political considerations. Also, the state of Israel reserves the right to determine to which community a person belongs, and officially register him or her accordingly — even when the person concerned objects to being part of a religious community (e.g., staunch atheists of Jewish origin are registered as members of the Jewish religious community, a practice derived ultimately from the fact that the Ottoman Millet ultimately designated a person's ethnicity more than a person's beliefs)." When we refer to systems of law there is more to it than merely some hypothetical notion of "International law" which like the EU is legal and political fiction.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 7:51pm

The following is a bit of background for those who display visceral derision towards Netanyahu's handling of the UN vote, excerpted from a comment posted on the British website Harry's Place:: http://hurryupharry.org/2012/12/03/israel-palestine-update/#comments "...Rabin himself responded in exactly the same way as Netanyahu did, back in 1975 when the Soviet-Arab blocs in the UN combined to push through the vote that declared "Zionism is racism". He announced a huge expansion of settlements, and carried it through: Netanyahu compared last week’s UN resolution with that body’s 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. Netanyahu read out a cabinet decision in response to the 1975 resolution in which Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel would expedite construction in the settlements in response to the resolution. What's more Condoleeza Rice when she was in office recognised that demands by the Palestinians to have the Israelis withdraw in their entirety from the West Bank would ensure they would never attain a state: Back in 2008, in the midst of the year-long Annapolis Process–which eventually produced the third Israeli offer within eight years of a Palestinian state on substantially all the West Bank and Gaza–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Ahmed Qurei, who was then the Palestinian prime minister leading the Palestinian negotiating team. According to Al Jazeera, in a report on the “Palestine Papers” leaked in 2011, the following conversation took place: Rice: I don’t think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma’ale Adumim. Qurei: Or any Palestinian leader. Rice: Then you won’t have a state! No Israeli prime minister is ever going to trade Ma’ale Adumim and E-1 for the magic beans of a Palestinian peace agreement, particularly now that the Palestinians have broken the one they already signed, which prohibited them from taking “any step” to change the legal status of the disputed territories outside of final status negotiations. What's more both Rabin and perceived dove Shimon Peres made commitments to build those settlements back in 1994, and Arafat nevertheless still signed an extension to the Oslo Accords in 1995: ...In a Knesset discussion on October 5, 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared: “United Jerusalem would also encompass Maale Adumim as well as Givat Zeev as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty.” Six months previously, in April, Rabin handed over the annexation documents of the E-1 area to Maale Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel.14 On March 13, 1996, Prime Minister Shimon Peres reaffirmed the government’s position that Israel will demand applying Israeli sovereignty over Maale Adumim in the framework of a permanent peace agreement. ...The main threat to Israel’s future contiguity comes from encroachments on E-1 made by illegal Palestinian construction. Israeli and Palestinian construction in the West Bank has been governed by the legal terms of the Oslo II Interim Agreement from September 28, 1995. Oslo II divided the West Bank into three different jurisdictions: Areas A, B, and C. In Area C, according to Oslo II, Israel retained the powers of zoning and planning (Annex III, Protocol Concerning Civil Affairs, Article 27). The area around E-1 is within Area C and much of the recently completed Palestinian construction there did not receive Israeli approval and, as a result, is illegal. In contrast, none of the Oslo Agreements prohibited Israeli settlement activity, which was considered an issue for permanent status negotiations in the future. Despite the absence of an Israeli settlement freeze, Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo II Interim Agreement, which covered the West Bank, nonetheless." _____ ironyroad: as far as Israel is concerned, the PA's step cannot be met with that kind of philosophical appeasement that you suggest. They violated their legal commitment in a binding treaty, signed and witnessed by the American president himself. It's hard to understand what world you live in, when you really think that Israel might be conciliatory towards the PA after it has taken this step. Why? For what reason? Do you understand the symbolic value of this attempt to rolling back the clock, by de-facto vitiating 181 of its main pillar, the partitioning of Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, that the UNGA has just conspired in?

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 7:55pm

I agree with arnon that "citizen" is a misleading term to apply to subjects of the Ottoman Empire. And when roi, who as we know is vastly knowledgeable about subtle points of International Law, chooses to use this term rather than the term under which inhabitants of the Ottomans lived, it is not unlikely that it is not done out of innocent ignorance but with deliberate expectation of creating a false impression.

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 8:00pm

Say, anyone know what happened to Marty Peretz?

- lfeinber@email.unc.edu

December 4, 2012 at 8:21pm

"Rice: I don’t think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma’ale Adumim. Qurei: Or any Palestinian leader. Rice: Then you won’t have a state!" Looks like Rice was wrong. There is a Palestinian state, currently under Israeli occupation. The occupation won't last. The US is not the only power in the world, not when Rice uttered those immortal words, and not now. _______________________________ "Do you understand the symbolic value of this attempt to rolling back the clock, by de-facto vitiating 181 of its main pillar, the partitioning of Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, that the UNGA has just conspired in?" This is utterly incomprehensible. It is Israel that insists, for obvious demographic reasons, that there not be a unitary-state solution with a single state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. It is the Jews who demanded a separate Jewish-majority state in Palestine in 1947 and still do. How on earth does the recognition of a Palestinian state in land that was given to the Arabs in the partition plan vitiate the partition plan? It is indeed the carrying out of the partition plan. What Israel increasingly wants is an apartheid state in which Israel is sovereign in all of Palestine but the Arab population there, soon a majority if not already a majority, does not have political rights. That was never what resolution 181 contemplated. Indeed, not long after the partition, the Geneva Conventions made apartheid a crime against humanity. The value of the UN vote is the recognition that there ARE two states, one Arab, one Jewish, and, implicitly, that the Jewish state will not be permitted indefinitely to govern the Arab state. Thank god. "They violated their legal commitment in a binding treaty, signed and witnessed by the American president himself." According to Yossi Beilin, writing just the other day in The New York Times, there is absolutely nothing in the Oslo accords that makes Palestinian statehood the subject of negotiation with, or agreement by, Israel.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 8:27pm

To everyone on Earth, as noga wrote (took me until Sunday to realize this is what happened, the ultimate UN 'do-over'): "as far as Israel is concerned, the PA's step cannot be met with that kind of philosophical appeasement that you suggest. They violated their legal commitment in a binding treaty, signed and witnessed by the American president himself. It's hard to understand what world you live in, when you really think that Israel might be conciliatory towards the PA after it has taken this step. Why? For what reason? Do you understand the symbolic value of this attempt to rolling back the clock, by de-facto vitiating 181 of its main pillar, the partitioning of Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, that the UNGA has just conspired in?"

- K2K

December 4, 2012 at 8:45pm

Quite an effort there by the moron, arnon, to retrieve his fatuous error. Not good enough (even with the assist by noga). The word "citizen" in the English language does not necessarily imply anything about the system of governance of the polity or the particular package of rights and privileges that citizens enjoy under different regimes. One could be a citizen of Rome, of the Ottoman Empire, of the Soviet Union, of the United States, of revolutionary France, of the State of New York, of the City of San Diego, or of ancient Athens. That does not tell us much of anything at all about the prevailing form of governance there or the rights of citizens. "cit·i·zen /ˈsitizən/ Noun 1. A legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth, either native or naturalized. 2. An inhabitant of a particular town or city. Synonyms subject - burgher - national - denizen - townsman" "citizen Person who is entitled to enjoy all the legal rights and privileges granted by a state to the people comprising its constituency, and is obligated to obey its laws and to fulfill his or duties as called upon. Also called national. See also domicile and resident." While the content of citizenship has changed over time, as systems of governance have changed, by the middle of the 19th century, the pre-Yishuv period when, according to sighthnd, Arabs within the Ottoman Empire were drawn to migrate to Palestine, there most certainly was a relatively modern concept of citizenship there. This is why wikipedia can write: "In 1856, the Hatt-ı Hümayun promised equality for all Ottoman citizens irrespective of their ethnicity and confession, widening the scope of the 1839 Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane. The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the Kanûn-ı Esâsî (meaning "Basic Law" in Ottoman Turkish), written by members of the Young Ottomans, which was promulgated on November 23, 1876. It established freedom of belief and equality of all citizens before the law." _________________________ The ignorance and stupidity of arnon, the moron, are both so vast that to cite anything more complex than wikipedia to illustrate either would be carrying coals to Newcastle. He's a dope; its all way over his head in any case. For everyone else: "Citizenship is seen by most scholars as culture-specific, in the sense that the meaning of the term varies considerably from culture to culture, and over time. How citizenship is understood depends on the person making the determination. The relation of citizenship has never been fixed or static, but constantly changes within each society. While citizenship has varied considerably throughout history, and within societies over time, there are some common elements but they vary considerably as well. As a bond, citizenship extends beyond basic kinship ties to unite people of different genetic backgrounds. It usually signifies membership in a political body. It is often based on, or was a result of, some form of military service or expectation of future service. It usually involves some form of political participation, but this can vary from token acts to active service in government. Citizenship is a status in society. It is an ideal state as well. It generally describes a person with legal rights within a given political order. It almost always has an element of exclusion, meaning that some people are not citizens, and that this distinction can sometimes be very important, or not important, depending on a particular society." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 8:48pm

""How on earth does the recognition of a Palestinian state in land that was given to the Arabs in the partition plan vitiate the partition plan?" The Partition plan referred specifically to two states for two peoples, one Arab and one Jewish. The Arabs have never accepted that resolution. If they had, it would mean recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and they adamantly refused to do that. Does the UN recognition now specifies that this recognition is based on the fact that NOW the Arabs are accepting the partition plan and the principle of two states for two peoples, one Arab, one Jewish?

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 8:49pm

ljach: Peretz has escaped Googleworld. I admit I googled him just to see if he had written anything during the Gaza Missiles Week (no disrespect to either side just not sure of the best word). Nada. Not since the WSJ interviewed him.

- K2K

December 4, 2012 at 8:51pm

Says noga: "...Rabin himself responded in exactly the same way as Netanyahu did, back in 1975 when the Soviet-Arab blocs in the UN combined to push through the vote that declared "Zionism is racism". Does it need to be pointed out that there is a vast difference between recognition of a Palestinian state and a declaration that "Zionism is racism?" Unless of course Zionism IS racism, in which case there would be little difference.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 8:53pm

12/04/2012 - 8:48pm EDT | roidubouloi ignorant ROIDO DUBU, repeats the childish nonsense he posted before as if by repeating a stupidity it becomes wise. This idiot thinks that by going to a dictionary (which he doesn't know how to read) he has proven his point. He merely proves his idiocy.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 9:02pm

"The Partition plan referred specifically to two states for two peoples, one Arab and one Jewish. The Arabs have never accepted that resolution. If they had, it would mean recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and they adamantly refused to do that. Does the UN recognition now specifies that this recognition is based on the fact that NOW the Arabs are accepting the partition plan and the principle of two states for two peoples, one Arab, one Jewish?" Abbas has affirmed again, just recently, that he accepts the legitimacy of Israel within the 1967 lines that include not only the Jewish partition of Palestine but a good deal more. There is nothing in the recognition of Palestine that derogates from the recognition of Israel. But it is also not the case that resolution 181 contemplated that Israel could discriminate against its Arab residents. To the contrary, resolution 181 specifically states: "No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex." As used in resolution 181, the terms Jewish state and Arab state mean neither more nor less than a Jewish-majority state and an Arab-majority state, a demographic fact that was the basis for the partition lines, not however intended to confer any privileged status. As Michael Oren explained in The New York Times, when the State of Israel today demands that it be "recognized" as a Jewish state, this means the abandonment by the Arabs of their claimed right of return to west of the Green Line, a matter specifically consigned to final status negotiations, and one that could hardly have been in contemplation when resolution 181 was adopted as Israel's War of Independence lay in the future. It is Israel that no longer accepts the principle of two states for two people, or even of one state for two people. The only outcome that Israel will now accept is Israel for Israel and the pieces of the Arab partition on which Israel has illegally settled for Israel. Barring that, Israel is perfectly willing indefinitely to govern the West Bank under an apartheid regime where different people have different political and legal rights based on their ethnicity. Sounds a lot like the millet system, not something that our modern understanding of human rights would contemplate.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:06pm

What it means is the the Israeli government considers this resolution to be of the same serious attempt at the delegitimization of the Jewish state. And considering that this recognition did not come AFTER the PA announced that it accepts the Partition Resolution, but instead of, I would put it to you that their outrage is fully merited. The recognition is incoherent at best, and done in bad faith. Frankly, roi, your positions and opinions here are well known and so predictable that I wonder if anybody even bothers to read them. Somehow I sense a bit of an uncertainty in your voluminous responses. You don't really feel you are on safe ground here, which is why you resort to all sorts of "obviously"s and such when there is absolutely no "obviously" merited.

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 9:08pm

"Citizenship is seen by most scholars as culture-specific, in the sense that the meaning of the term varies considerably from culture to culture, and over time. How citizenship is understood depends on the person making the determination. The relation of citizenship has never been fixed or static, but constantly changes within each society. While citizenship has varied considerably throughout history, and within societies over time, there are some common elements but they vary considerably as well." Roid quotes points which he denied (he actually never knew) before. This is how Roido win arguments. He attacks the interlocutor's point of view. Then he restates it pretending it was his view all along. ROIDO is ignorant, he is also a liar. Is he really a lawyer as he claims? Note how he copies the mode of argumentation of those he argues against.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 9:09pm

""Abbas has affirmed again, just recently, that he accepts the legitimacy of Israel within the 1967" Not at all the same thing as a recognition of a partition between two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab. Abbas heads a PA that pays money for an education system and state-sponsored that teaches Palestinians and their children that there is no trace of Jewish history in Palestine. Can you straighten the crooked, roi? Can you flatten mountains into plains? This is how I consider your repeated attempts to exonerate the Palestinians of any responsibility whatsoever for whatever they do and say. However, I urge you to continue to try to prove that the PA recognized Israel as a Jewish state with history in Jerusalem.

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 9:14pm

Yes, arnon, I understand that for a moron like you it is unthinkable to refer to a dictionary, of all things, to understand the meaning of words. An encyclopedia that gives a much more nuanced and detailed understanding is therefore for you completely out of the question. The best you can do under the circumstances is lamely to suggest that wikipedia is necessarily inaccurate (without of course having anything to cite to the contrary and then proceeding yourself to cite to wikipedia -- Could you possibly be any more ridiculous?) This is why you are a moron. And a child throwing a tantrum. You don't belong here, arnon. The discussions here are waaaaaay over your head. You are too stupid and too ignorant to do more than mess up these pages with your ridiculous spew.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:18pm

"Not at all the same thing as a recognition of a partition between two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab." This is completely unintelligible, unless it is meant to imply a racist and apartheid state where non-Jewish residents do not enjoy equal political rights -- something both explicitly rejected by the text of resolution 181 and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:21pm

Yossi Beilin, writing in The New York Times on November 25, 2012: "If the world wants to express support for the Palestinian party that recognizes Israel, seeks to avoid violence, and genuinely wishes to reach a peace agreement in which a Palestinian state exists alongside — not instead of — Israel, it will have its chance later this week when Mr. Abbas makes his bid for recognition of Palestinian statehood before the United Nations. . . . It is paradoxical that Israel’s current government is so vehemently opposed to Mr. Abbas’s bid for recognition. After all, it was 65 years ago this week, on Nov. 29, 1947, that the Palestinians and their friends in the Arab world expressly rejected United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognized the need to establish a Jewish state alongside an Arab state in the former British Mandate territory of Palestine. Now, the Palestinians are admitting their mistake and asking the same assembly to recognize a state of Palestine alongside Israel, and requesting that the boundaries of their state be determined as a result of negotiations with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel’s right-wing parties — which in 1993 rejected the Oslo Accords that envisaged Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the establishment of Palestinian autonomy in those areas — are now using, and abusing, that same agreement to prevent Palestinian statehood. . . . The claim that Palestinians are violating the Oslo agreement by presenting their proposal to the General Assembly is completely unfounded. The topic of Palestinian statehood was never one of the five issues (Jerusalem’s status, the fate of refugees, security arrangements, borders and settlements) that were considered “final status” issues in the 1993 Oslo accord. The Palestinians chose not to mention the issue of a state, as they saw self-determination as a basic right for their people; and it was convenient back then for Israel not to address the topic."

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:28pm

I don't intend to respond to any comment that uses the term "appeasement" in that way, as such a comment is not meant as an honest contribution to the discussion but rather as a calculated insult. If you'd like to have a discussion without the pointless provocation, Noga, then I'm happy to join in. If not, then not.

- ironyroad

December 4, 2012 at 9:30pm

The rich hypocritical ROIDO can't stand admitting that he was wrong. He grew up being catered to his every desire and told he was right by his inferior servants. ROIDO had no notion that the concept of citizenship in the Ottoman Empire was very different from that of the one he grew up in. Yet now he claims that he knew it all along. He isn't just an asshole liar, he is a hypocritical ass hole liar. I shudder to think that he wants to represent the anti_Netanyahu view. Gives us a break stupid ROIDO and go argue with you rich friends in uptown Manhattan. They will appreciate your hypocrisy better than anyone here since you all were raised in the same way.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 9:31pm

"If you'd like to have a discussion without the pointless provocation, Noga, then I'm happy to join in. If not, then not." Why do you want to join a discussion that's been repeated time and again over the last ten years? There is no upside to joining. You are not going to learn anything from either side. At least insulting the rich ignorant self important boy ROIDO is fun.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 9:35pm

"This is completely unintelligible, unless it is meant to imply a racist and apartheid state where non-Jewish residents do not enjoy equal political rights -- something both explicitly rejected by the text of resolution 181 and a violation of the Geneva Conventions." http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm I'm sure you are familiar with the text of Resolution 181. I won't even quote from it. "unintelligible" - is this your favourite word of the day?

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 9:37pm

ironyroad: No provocation was intended. "Appeasement" is a legitimate term to describe your proposal. It's called in Yiddish "cheindalach"; it's how (some) pretty women try to gain some advantage by fluttering their eyelashes and pouting invitingly and appealingly. Such gains are woefully short lived and end in arousing further contempt towards them. But I'm not really interested in having a discussion with you.

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 9:54pm

malahat -- yes, this is not in strict terms about the rights of Israelis or Palestinians, the perfidy (why has that archaic word suddenly become so popular?) of Abbas, the implacable violence of Hamas, the future borders of Palestine, the Oslo Accords, the wonderfulness of Netanyahu, the Iron Dome, the Golan Heights, or the Tel Aviv gay scene -- this is about the foreign policy strategy that Israel has decided upon in order to strengthen (or not) its position in the world. There are many countries lined up against Israel who will not change their tune no matter what happens, but there are also many countries who want to support what looks like a balanced and future-oriented approach to solving a long-rankling conflict. Taking an unbalanced and apparently resentful decision to . . . what? . . . stick it to the world for not seeing things our way? seems bad diplomacy at the least.

- ironyroad

December 4, 2012 at 9:58pm

moron1, I wasn't discussing the content of citizenship in the Ottoman Empire. That was and is completely irrelevant to my point that Arab migration to Palestine in the pre-Yishuv period was not in-migration from outside of the Ottoman Empire but regional migration by citizens of the Ottoman Empire within the Ottoman Emprie. Further, although I didn't mention it, that migration was not from one ethnic region to another, but within the Arab ethnic region. The simplest things completely elude you, don't they? _________________________ I just quoted you from resolution 181, noga. Read it, why don't you? It plainly does not contemplate anything more than a Jewish-majority and an Arab-majority state within Palestine with equal rights everywhere to be recognized and protected. I cannot even imagine how you think that resolution 181 is inconsistent with the new reality of a State of Israel and a State of Palestine, the very two states contemplated by the UN partition plan. Of course, Israel can make claims upon Palestine on behalf of Jews displaced in the War of Independence. But then it would be unable to deny Palestinian claims on behalf of Arabs displaced during the war -- the Palestinian right of return that Israel wants to extinguish. Or, Israel could actually negotiate in good faith about these matters, something the Likud will not do. Rather, it demands pieces of Palestine to which it has no territorial claim as a condition to ending the occupation. I try to use the word that fits the occasion. Sometimes I use the same word. Sometimes I don't. So it goes.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 9:59pm

"But I'm not really interested in having a discussion with you." That has been observable for quite a long time.

- ironyroad

December 4, 2012 at 10:01pm

A "Jewish state" and an "Ärab" state is what resolution 181 stipulates. The partition plan was about two states for two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab. You can slice the pie any which way, roi, it won't change its ingredients and taste. The rights of minorities in Israel are enshrined in the declaration of independence and in the foundational laws of the state. So your slanders about racism and apartheide are just that, slanders, a measure of that uncertainty I alluded to earlier. The less confident you are, the greater the slander. Known roial tactics.

- Noga

December 4, 2012 at 10:10pm

ridiculous roido-bullshit: 12/04/2012 - 9:59pm EDT | "I wasn't discussing the content of citizenship in the Ottoman Empire. That was and is completely irrelevant to my point that Arab migration to Palestine in the pre-Yishuv..." 12/04/2012 - 4:39pm EDT | roidubouloi "Please, moron1, do me the favor of not reading my posts. All that follows are your inane comments (informed by the fact that you haven't read them). Arab migrants to Palestine were migrants within the polity, the Ottoman Empire, of which they were citizens." So "citizenship" was not part of your discussion. You just took it for granted that there was such a thing as "Ottoman citizenship." You are dumber than Dan Quayle and Romney put together. Even though you come from a similar social background. You are the real moron, Roido-ignoramus. You are also a hypocritical liar but don't let that bother you, where you come from, (as Romney showed) being a hypocrite is a requirement of citizenship. btw: you don't have to be a Republican to be an ignorant hypocrite.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 10:17pm

moron1, It appears that even with explanation as dumbed-down as I can manage, it is all still too much for you, which leaves you enraged, frustrated, and babbling incoherently. Yes, I wrote: "Arab migrants to Palestine were migrants within the polity, the Ottoman Empire, of which they were citizens." This is absolutely correct. They were citizens of the Ottoman Empire. They were migrating within the Ottoman Empire, the very polity of which they were citizens. The were not in-migrating form some other place or culture. This, however, says nothing at all about whether being a citizen of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century meant the same thing or a different thing from being a citizen of France or a citizen of Virginia. Indeed, such considerations would have been utterly beside the point of the discussion. So, not only are you wrong about your facts, because you don't understand the meaning of the word citizen and refuse to be guided either by a dictionary or an encyclopedia, but it is obvious that your reading comprehension is severely challenged. Ergo, moron1. You keep insisting that you are not reading, or will stop reading, my posts. This is exactly why I urge you to please follow through on your threat and stop reading them. All that happens when you do read them is that you are reduced to hopeless confusion, become emotionally over-wrought, and proceed to slather these pages with your ignorance and juvenile attempts at insult. In a word, you are embarrassing yourself. Do yourself a favor and move on.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 10:29pm

Then go ahead, noga, and explain what on earth this could possibly mean: I say, "Abbas has affirmed again, just recently, that he accepts the legitimacy of Israel within the 1967 lines." and you respond, "Not at all the same thing as a recognition of a partition between two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab." You wrote it, you ought to know what you intended. If it does not imply that you want racial/ethnic discrimination or apartheid within the State of Israel, then what?

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 10:34pm

Plainly resolution 181 does not contemplate racial/ethnic discrimination, let alone apartheid, within either the Jewish state or the Arab state as such discrimination is explicitly required by resolution 181 to be prohibited. It obliges both states to uphold equal rights for all residents, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Ethnic cleansing was also clearly not permitted. So, what then is "partition between two peoples," as distinct from a partition of sovereignty over the territory divided by the mapmakers into a Jewish-majority area and an Arab-majority area, supposed to mean that can be squared with resolution 181?

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 10:38pm

Judea and Samaria great success. The demographic success of Israel's settlement project The numbers suggest that President Mahmoud Abbas's bid to the United Nations General Assembly was too little, too late. Last Modified: 04 Dec 2012 14:24 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/2012124135935526146.html

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 10:40pm

Self Righteous dumb ass roido can't even own up that he lied when the I presented him with the evidence. He is a useless hack. "This is absolutely correct. They were citizens of the Ottoman Empire." They lived in the Ottoman Empire, they were subjects but they were not "citizens." But IDIOT ROIDO wouldn't know the difference. What a useless turd you are.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 10:46pm

"You keep insisting that you are not reading, or will stop reading,..." Hypocrite, I don't take your post seriously. No I don't read them, I scan them. There is a difference. Nothing you write is so profound that one cant get their meaning by a quick glance. You are a lightweight. How did you ever get into law school? Your family must have given the dean a priceless present.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 10:51pm

Not only did I get into law school, moron1, and a very fine one at that, but I graduated at the top of my class and then went on to have a great career, first as a lawyer at a very prestigious Wall Street firm, then in merchant banking, then with my own trading firm. It is ALL so far beyond you, that you cannot even begin to imagine. _________________ moron1 says, based on his own authority and nothing else, "They lived in the Ottoman Empire, they were subjects but they were not 'citizens.'" This is, of course, the reason why wikipedia, in the very article on the millet system cited by moron1, says: "The Ottoman System lost the mechanisms of its existence from the assignment of protection of citizen rights of their subjects to other states. People were not citizens of the Ottoman Empire anymore but of other states, due to the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire to European powers, protecting the rights of their citizens within the Empire. The Russians became formal Protectors of Eastern Orthodox groups, the French of Roman Catholics and the British of Jews and other groups." There no Capitulations with respect to Moslems, moron1, because the Ottoman Empire was ruled by Moslems. Have you any idea how very stupid you are, moron1? You keep insisting on the same idiotic point, that there were no citizens in the Ottoman Empire although even the sources that you yourself cite make clear that there were. Worse, you still cannot figure out that this whole tempest in a teapot, created by you, is completely irrelevant to the discussion here. Sheesh. What a dunce.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 11:16pm

Turkey now will face all those missiles from Syria and Hezbollah . Turkey missile defence system approved NATO foreign ministers agree to deployment of Patriot missiles to defend country's southern border with Syria. Last Modified: 04 Dec 2012 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/12/201212418813394904.html NATO approves to deploy Patriot missiles in Turkey Tuesday, 04 December 2012 http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/04/253364.html ................................................. And all those WMD the USA could not find in Iraq reappear in Syria who is reading to use. Middle East NATO warns Syria against chemical weapons use Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen says any use of such arms will draw 'immediate reaction' from world community. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/20121241462239689.html http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/05/253371.html

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 11:19pm

And all those WMD the USA could not find in Iraq reappear in Syria who is reading to use. Middle East NATO warns Syria against chemical weapons use Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen says any use of such arms will draw 'immediate reaction' from world community. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/20121241462239689.html http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/05/253371.html

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 11:22pm

By the way, moron1, the State of Israel, like other parts of the former Ottoman Empire, perpetuates the millet system in important respects, assigning people to religious communities for purposes of family law. Yet no one would claim that Israelis are not citizens of Israel because of the existence of this system. The millet system actually has nothing to say about whether an individual is or is not a citizen of the state. A citizen of the Ottoman Empire would necessarily belong to one or another millet. To no surprise, you completely misunderstand the legal implications of this too.

- roidubouloi

December 4, 2012 at 11:25pm

And Mursi is having his problems in his attempt to become the next Egyptian dictator to Hamas chagrin. U.S. urges restraint as supporters, opponents of President Mursi clash Tuesday, 04 December 2012 http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/04/253338.html Egyptian newspapers go on strike to protest draft constitution http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/04/253299.html

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 11:32pm

Lying asshole Roidope: "Not only did I get into law school, moron1, and a very fine one at that, but I graduated at the top of my class and then went on to have a great career, first as a lawyer at a very prestigious Wall Street firm, then in merchant banking, then with my own trading firm. It is ALL so far beyond you, that you cannot even begin to imagine." Got any proof, or are we supposed to take your word that you are the greatest man since Saladin, roidope? Given by the ignorant nonsense you post, I''d say you are not even as good as the guy who picks up my garbage. "The Ottoman System lost the mechanisms of its existence from the assignment of protection of citizen rights of their subjects to other states." If the Ottoman system lost its ability to protect their subjects (not citizens, roidope-- pay attention) then who was supposed to protect their Arab subjects? Japan? God, what a stupid dope. The Arabs were subjects of the Ottomans and not "citizens" and nothing you posted or could ever post will prove that they were citizens.

- arnon1

December 4, 2012 at 11:37pm

It is possible this is a battle for Jerusalem. First it was Ramat Shlomo. Then Gilo. Last year, from the UN platform, no-longer-elected, but still the PA (fill in the blank) Abbas denied historical Jewish presence in Jerusalem . Accession of the PA to UNESCO has shown the PA is trying to use UNESCO to further this denial, which I guess fits Sunni doctrine that Adam was the first muslim, and Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Kings David, Solomon were also muslims... And it is E-1 that seems to be provoking all the hissy-fits this week. On the plus side, better a battle of words and maps than rockets and missiles. The United States is still in a state of war with North Korea because of the post-WW2 attempt to end war via the United Nations. Instead, the world has so many frozen conflicts like NoKorea that you would think all that freezing of conflicts would offset global warming :) But, this is different. Not just because the Jewish State of Israel is the proxy for all the sins of colonialism, but because Israel discovered shale oil reserves and is developing offshore natural gas.

- K2K

December 4, 2012 at 11:37pm

I have been watching the movie Lawrence of Arabia. Takes place when the British fought the Turks and won. The Arabs were a bunch of loose clans united by Lawrence who tried to have them govern and did not succeed. Finally Britain and France took over and shared Arabia and Damascus. And as the going says, when you win it you enjoy it. Such is the history of the legal liberated territories. You won fair and square, you keep it for good. Any further discussion is just a sport in serendipity, or whatever, a waste in air balloons . Good night and good luck. And so it goes.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 11:46pm

"", I''d say you are not even as good as the guy who picks up my garbage."" He is a "citizen", probably voted for BHO, and your favorite president LBJ the Vietnam war criminal.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 4, 2012 at 11:55pm

That's ok, Jaime LBJ was no war criminal. Only an alleged war criminal. You gotta be convicted by a legally constituted court of law and LBJ as never even tried. You don't have to be a lawyer to know that.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 12:02am

"Not only did I get into law school, moron1, and a very fine one at that, but I graduated at the top of my class and then went on to have a great career," DOPE ROIDO. If he had even a tenth of the fine career he claims to have had (never mind that the dope used to tell us that he was a student) he wouldn't even spend five minutes on TNR forums. But this brilliant dope spends day in and day out here. He is either a liar or a lonely bored guy. What happened dope, did you spouse get bored listening to you bragging about what a great successful guy you were? Did she walk out on poor little roi? what a sad tale...

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 12:08am

Made so much money I can do whatever I want to do, moron1. Don't have a day job, don't have a night job. Just do whatever I like, including, at present, working on a doctorate in economics. Nothing you could ever hope to accomplish. Indeed, there isn't one course in that curriculum that you could possibly make it through. Given your obvious incapacity, I would be amazed if you are not still living with your mommy. You do, don't you? That would explain your childishness.

- roidubouloi

December 5, 2012 at 12:49am

" 'Debtpocalypse' and hollow society" By Steve Fraser Dec 5, 2012 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/NL05Aa01.html "Debtpocalypse" looms. Depending on who wins out in Washington, we’re told, we will either free fall over the fiscal cliff or take a terrifying slide to the pit at the bottom. Grim as these scenarios might seem, there is something confected about the mise-en-scene, like an un-fun Playland. After all, there is no fiscal cliff, or at least there was none - until the two parties built it. ..."

- K2K

December 5, 2012 at 1:11am

Some say that PhD stands for pile higher and deeper. I remember that guy in Texas, that had become very rich with no schooling. His name evades me, had two sons that cornered the silver market at one time. The father used to come to the office bringing his lunch in a brown bag. He bragged that with his money he could hire PhD's hands full. Well eventually his sons failed and went into bankruptcy, if memory don't fail me. I shouldn't be harsh on PhD's, since I am one. Helped me to have a good job for 27 years. My children have done better. David and Carolina are MD's. Rachel has degrees in chemical engineering, MS in Mathematics, and after working a few years is working on a PhD in math. Solomon has a bachelors in accounting. My late wife had degrees in biotech, and bachelors in Italian and French in her later years. But all is in the memory lane.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 1:32am

I am not surprised at roi-du-bouloi. He sounds too theoretical ,lacks practicality, lacks flexibility. Some of these traits are good, but also are bad. Myself I prefer applied to theoretical, it always went well with me.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 1:43am

I'd like to corner the silver market, but I doubt it's going to happen. Nobel Prize? Pas possible monsieur, je suis très desolé. Write another book? Maybe.

- ironyroad

December 5, 2012 at 1:59am

The two brothers managed to rise the price of silver considerably. Then they put all that money their father had made from oil into silver. Then the price of silver came down to a point that the brothers went bankrupt. If memory serves me well. En fin ces't la vie. You win some you loose some. I was working in the department making X-ray and graphic arts films that used silver nitrate. The Vice President was approached by an outsider to convince him to buy large amounts of the silver nitrate, the Vice President refuse to do that. The other company , Kodak, used much larger amounts for the amateur film. This is past history. Today most activities use electronics. Kodak now is in bankruptcy. They never adapted to the electronics world. They have many patents that are trying to sell to survive.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 2:26am

was just reading that Turkey has been buying discounted Iranian oil with gold bullion. which makes it kind of tense because Turkey is aligned against Iran over Syria.

- K2K

December 5, 2012 at 2:30am

These are the brothers that played with silver speculation, from Wikipedia Silver manipulation Main article: Silver Thursday Beginning in the early 1970s, Hunt and his brother William Herbert Hunt began accumulating large amounts of silver. By 1979, they had nearly cornered the global market.[6] In the last nine months of 1979, the brothers profited by an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion in silver speculation, with estimated silver holdings of 100 million ounces (6.25 million pounds).[7] During the Hunt brothers' accumulation of the precious metal, prices of silver futures contracts and silver bullion during 1979 and 1980 rose from $11 an ounce in September 1979 to $50 an ounce in January 1980. Silver prices ultimately collapsed to below $11 an ounce two months later. The largest single day drop in the price of silver occurred on Silver Thursday.[1] Hunt filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code in September 1988, largely due to lawsuits incurred as a result of his silver speculation.[1] In 1989 in a settlement with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Nelson Bunker Hunt was fined US$10 million and banned from trading in the commodity markets as a result of civil charges of conspiring to manipulate the silver market stemming from his attempt to corner the market in silver.[1] This fine was in addition to a multimillion-dollar settlement to pay back taxes, fines and interest to the Internal Revenue Service for the same period.[1]

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 2:41am

more roidodo-bull "Made so much money I can do whatever I want to do, moron1. Don't have a day job, don't have a night job." But "I just happen to like hanging around TNR." Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it. The King of bull just happens to love trading insults with us nonentities.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 2:55am

Three Jews walk into a bar. Jew A: I've got so much money it's coming out of my ears. Jew B: You are not even as good as the guy who picks up my garbage Jew C: Myself I prefer applied to theoretical, it always went well with me. A fourth Jew saunters over. Jew D: Oy. What what a Debtpocalyptic, hollow society... The inevitable gentile by-stander nursing a drink, having witnessed this extraordinary conversation: Gentile: Pas possible monsieur, je suis très desolé. __________ A scene from the upcoming play of the absurd: The End of the Forty-Year Peace Between Israel and Arab States . It all makes perfect sense, to me.

- Noga

December 5, 2012 at 6:42am

The Hunt Brothers. They borrowed most of the money from Bache & Co. on margin, leading to the insolvency of Bache. I wrote the loan and security agreement as counsel to Bache. The agreement was beside the point as the Hunts couldn't repay what I recall was about $5 billion. When they liquidated their corner on silver, the price had to drop. I also vaguely recall that the Federal reserve assisted the unwinding very quietly. I think I was told by the senior partner on the matter that the Fed did so because it was believed that the failure of Bache would cause the failure of one of the major firms that would in turn bring down all of Wall Street.

- roidubouloi

December 5, 2012 at 7:23am

It would make perfect sense if someone would start to discuss Jane Austen.

- roidubouloi

December 5, 2012 at 7:25am

One can insult you, moron1, but not trade insults with you, because you cannot really be insulting. That too is way over your head. Your attempts are those of a five-year old. Actually to be insulting, you would have to be a least a little bit clever. Can you see the problem? At your worst, you can rise to the level of slightly annoying, the way small children can be.

- roidubouloi

December 5, 2012 at 7:28am

Moreover, moron1, while you come here to attempt to insult and to be insulted in return, my purpose is to comment on matters that I find interesting and/or important and to read what other people say, sometimes expressing my agreement or disagreement with them. Unfortunately, putting up with morons such as you is at times the cost of doing business here. You have nothing to say, being an empty head, but are so desperate to participate that you resort to your attempted insults. It's the best you can do, because you have no other means of participating. It would be nice if they administered an intelligence test at the door to exclude the empty heads such as yourself. As they don't, one must swat the flies.

- roidubouloi

December 5, 2012 at 7:45am

One of the Hunt brothers developed the oil fields in Lybia that were later nationalized by Quadaffi . The Hunts were the inspiration for the tv series Dallas. BTW their star, Larry Hagman ,playing JR just died.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 8:20am

roidodope is baaaack! The dope pretends that he can't be insulted yet he never misses an opportunity to reply. Must be that someone else is (his alter ego) feels insulted and is replying instead. Roidodope is deceived.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 8:53am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3482/palestinians-un "The Fatah celebrations -- which also took place in the Gaza Strip for the first time since 2007 -- were not about the upgrading of the Palestinians' status so much as the feeling that Israel has been humiliated and isolated in the international community. There has been no mention of the peace process or coexistence with Israel. The belligerent and defiant tone of Fatah officials sent the message that the Palestinians are now headed toward confrontation with Israel -- not peace." To this, Israel should strike a conciliatory tone, welcome the UN recognition and offer peace.

- Noga

December 5, 2012 at 12:32pm

Have you heard about the lost novel of Jane Austen's that has just come to light? It's called "Appeasement: A Narrative" and tells the story of a formerly attractive and optimistic foreign policy who now does nothing new and never has an imaginative thought in case it looks like appeasement.

- ironyroad

December 5, 2012 at 12:33pm

I almost cracked a rib laughing, ironyroad. So drole. Aggrieved people should not try to be funny, it comes out all wrong.

- Noga

December 5, 2012 at 1:03pm

Now that we have Jane Austen in the picture, it all makes sense. Netanyahu greets the action of the world with defiance, immediately proposing more, and more provocative, illegal settlements. He is determined both to continue to humiliate the Palestinians by any means available and further to isolate Israel in the international community. There is no mention of recognition of Palestine, although it recognizes Israel, or of doing other than using Israel's monopoly of force to maintain its control and aggrandizement. Israel's most urgent effort in the face of expected UN action was to try to avoid being held to account in the International Criminal Court. The belligerent and defiant tone of Israeli officials sent the message that Israel is now headed for confrontation with the whole world -- not peace. To this, Palestine should strike a conciliatory note, welcome Israeli defiance of the UN and world legal order, and offer peace, the legitimation of Israel's illegal settlements east of the Green Line, and the abandonment of Palestinian claims west of the Green Line?

- roidubouloi

December 5, 2012 at 1:07pm

I'd say the aggrievement spread is fairly generous around these parts right now.

- ironyroad

December 5, 2012 at 2:04pm

More about the legal liberated Judea and Samaria. Read the blog http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/daniel-greenfield/the-deadly-global-threat-of-israeli-houses/2012/12/05/0/?print By: Daniel Greenfield Published: December 5th, 2012 Photo Credit: Dror Garti/FLASH90 There are few weapons as deadly as the Israeli house. When its bricks and mortar are combined together, the house, whether it is one of those modest one story hilltop affairs or a five floor apartment building complete with hot and cold running water, becomes far more dangerous than anything green and glowing that comes out of the Iranian centrifuges. Forget the cluster bomb and the mine, the poison gas shell and even tailored viruses. Iran can keep its nuclear bombs. They don't impress anyone in Europe or in Washington DC. Genocide is equally not worthy of attention when in the presence of the fearsome weapon of terror that is an Israeli family of four moving into a new apartment downwind from Jerusalem. Sudan may have built a small mountain of African corpses, but it can't expect to command the full and undivided attention of the world until it does something truly outrageous like building a house and filling it with Jews. Since the Sudanese Jews are as gone as the Jews of Egypt, Iraq, Syria and good old Afghanistan, the chances of Bashir the Butcher pulling off that trick are rather slim. Due to the Muslim world's shortsightedness in driving out its Jews from Cairo, Aleppo and Baghdad to Jerusalem, the ultimate weapon in international affairs is entirely controlled by the Jewish State. The Jewish State's stockpile of Jews should worry the international community far more than its hypothetical stockpiles of nuclear weapons. No one besides Israel, and possibly Saudi Arabia, cares much about the Iranian bomb. But when Israel builds a house, then the international community tears its clothes, wails, threatens to recall its ambassadors and boycott Israeli peaches. READ THE REST AT http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/daniel-greenfield/the-deadly-global-threat-of-israeli-houses/2012/12/05/0/?print

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 2:23pm

WORTH EXCERPTING...............don't you think merd-du-bouloi? Farkackt-farsheist-farblonshet-farnicht "UN Chief Ban Ki-moon has declared Israeli houses to be an "almost fatal blow" to the peace process. It is, of course, only an "almost fatal blow" because the peace process, like Dracula, cannot be killed. Israeli houses, fearsome as they may be with their balconies and poor heating in winter, are never quite enough to kill it. Like the monster of a horror movie, the peace process always comes back and no matter how many blows the Israeli house delivers to it, a year later there's a sequel where the Israeli house is being stalked by the peace process monster all over again. The army of lethal Israeli houses, which may not be built for another five years, if ever, seem formidable in the black newsprint of the New York Times, in the fulminations of Guardian columnists and the shrill talking-pointation of CNN talking heads, but its actual potency is limited to housing Jewish families and infuriating international diplomats and their media coat hangers. Europe is furious, Obama is seething, the UN is energized, and somewhere in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wipes the grease out of his mustache and wonders what he could do to get this much attention. He briefly scribbles down some thoughts on a napkin but then dismisses it as being too implausible. As much as it might get the world's attention, there is just no way Iran can put up apartment buildings in Jerusalem.""

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 2:34pm

For the benefit of merd-du-bouloi http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com/category/israel-jews-in-judea-and-samaria/ No International outcry over Ariel university upgrade July 20, 2012 Decision to make college in West Bank settlement into full-fledged university passes quietly despite protest warnings. There are 13.000 students at the University of Ariel, hardly 25 minutes drive from Tel Aviv. Tuesday’s decision to upgrade the status of the Ariel college to that of a university did not evoke international condemnation on Wednesday, even though some warned of a wave of protests because the school is located in a settlement. One Foreign Ministry official said that no governmental condemnation was registered in any of the major capitals around the world about the matter. One reason given for the silence – despite the fact that condemnations are routinely issued in various capitals where there is any announcement of building or plans to build beyond the Green Line – is that while the status of the Ariel University Center might change, nothing is changing on the ground. Source: Jerusalem Post My comment: Israelis are so used to criticism of Zionism, than they do not get surprised if the whole World tries to curse them. They are rather taken by surprise by silence. I have visited the city of Ariel in Samaria. It is hardly 25 minutes drive from Tel Aviv. It is tragic that any true Jew can brand this city as “occupied foreign land”. The distance from Tel Aviv to Ariel is shorter than the distance to Haifa. Samaria is Jewish land as anything Jewish inside the state of Israel. When Ariel was rebuilt after the war of independence, there was not a single Arab soul living in this area. The hills were wasteland, and not populated. Only when the city grew and prospered, radical followers of Islam started to claim the land were theirs. Such claims is based on lies and fraud. Please support the people of Ariel. Support the Jewish people’s right to live in Samaria, their ancient property they were set to be good caretakers of, a covenant established by God of the Bible. Written by Ivar 1 Comment | Israel: Jews in Judea and Samaria | Tagged: Israel, Jews, judaism, Judea, Religion, Samaria, Zionism | Permalink Posted by ivarfjeld

- JAIMECHUCH

December 5, 2012 at 2:49pm

"There is no mention of recognition of Palestine, although it recognizes Israel" http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8111 "Earlier this year, Palestinian Media Watch released a bulletin explaining the Palestinian Authority strategy. Last year, the PA went to the UN requesting full statehood recognition. In the days following last year's request for statehood, official PA TV celebrated the request by playing clips that show maps of the future Palestinian state. As opposed to Abbas' declaration at the UN recognizing Israel, the maps on PA TV showed a Palestinian state replacing Israel."

- Noga

December 5, 2012 at 3:35pm

"We're going to pay" http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4315915,00.html "Op-ed: Europe no longer satisfied with mere condemnations, expressions of concern over settlement construction" by Shimon Shiffer Netanyahu will bring disaster upon Israel before he is through.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 5:55pm

Is Greece still selling islands? Maybe some Israeli Jews can buy those islands and build apartments for more Jews, inside the EU. Imagine the reaction :)

- K2K

December 5, 2012 at 7:36pm

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/new-judea-and-samaria-passport-stamp-drives-arabs-and-the-ap-nuts/2012/12/05/0/ "New ‘Judea and Samaria’ Passport Stamp Drives Arabs and the AP Nuts"

- K2K

December 5, 2012 at 8:57pm

"Maybe some Israeli Jews can buy those islands and build apartments for more Jews, inside the EU." Jews, Israeli or American are free to buy land in most European countries and build apartments for Jews. But why would they want to do so? Israel exists because Jews didn't want to build apartments in Europe. The life of Jews in Europe was always problematic to say the least.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 9:26pm

K2K: I'm sure that the moment some Israeli Jews buy a few islands and begin to develop them, some Arabs will claim that they were there first and are being colonized. And no doubt the EU will soon find that it is so. So the Europeans are imposing restrictions on Jewish trade and Jewish settlement. So what else is new? After Munich, when the Germans colluded openly with terrorists, nothing about what Europe does, ever surprises me. What does give me pause is the realization of how deeply hypocritical they are, and how clueless they are about what moves them to do these things. Malice and ignorance, too, go well together.

- Noga

December 5, 2012 at 9:49pm

"I'm sure that the moment some Israeli Jews buy a few islands and begin to develop them, some Arabs will claim that they were there first and are being colonized. And no doubt the EU will soon find that it is so." "So the Europeans are imposing restrictions on Jewish trade and Jewish settlement." Blame that on Netanyahu. If you are talking about islands in the Mediterranean such as Sicily and many of the Greek Islands the Arabs did conquer them in late antiquity. This fact, though, is not to their credit.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 10:19pm

This is the really important story of the moment: "Report: Syrian military arms chemical weapons NBC says Assad's forces have 'loaded chemical weapons into bombs'; now await orders to strike rebels with deadly sarin gas" http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4316336,00.html I hope the Israeli Air Force is on alert ready to shoot down any plane the maniac Assad would send towards its neighboring country.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 10:23pm

Here is more on the Syrian madman: http://www.timesofisrael.com/ Here is more on the Syrian madman: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-huddling-with-israel-as-assads-forces-load-chemical-weapons-into-bombs/ "US ‘huddling’ with Israel, other allies as Assad’s forces ‘load chemical weapons into bombs’Syrian troops reportedly began mixing components over the weekend; ‘remote’ danger of chemical weapons being fired into Israel, CNN contributor notes"

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 10:30pm

Noga: I obviously need to learn more emoticons, but thanks for interpreting my implied meaning. The Arabs surely can prove that they once set foot on every Greek island. I am surprised Arabs have not yet claimed they discovered Long Island, and invented lox and bagels, without a schmear. In other news, I await the real answer of why Ayalon just got de-listed by A Lieberman.

- K2K

December 5, 2012 at 10:30pm

"....obviously need to learn more emoticons" K@K's meaning was obvious and not very interesting because historically untrue. The Jews in Israel fled Europe and there is no reason for them to buy land in Greece of all places. Greece has a Nazi party which sits in its parliament.

- arnon1

December 5, 2012 at 10:42pm

In the news: the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier group, including the USS COle and USS Winston Churchill, has joined the three ship Marine Expeditionary Unit already offshore Syria. the juvenile trivialization of the blogpost titles/photos here at tnr.com belong in a tabloid, not what used to be a serious publication.

- K2K

December 6, 2012 at 12:17am

Funny I Couldn't find this at the TNR search.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 6, 2012 at 1:20am

Methinks our friend is irony-challenged, K2K. It's typical of people with fixated personalities. There should certainly be an emoticon for Watch out! Irony on board!

- Noga

December 6, 2012 at 6:31am

Oops. This calls for disambiguation, lest I find myself in hot water again. I meant Irony, the term, not the poster :)

- Noga

December 6, 2012 at 6:34am

Just because some poster thinks a comment is ironic doesn't make it ironic. A sing should be posted on certain supposedly ironic comments: THIS IS NOT IRONIC. K@K: "Is Greece still selling islands? Maybe some Israeli Jews can buy those islands and build apartments for more Jews, inside the EU. Imagine the reaction :)" This is not ironic because Jews have bough land, houses and built apartments all over Europe. Jews are a most difficult subject for irony.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 10:48am

agree Noga about the ironically-challenged. I was too cryptic. Was thinking of the dispute in the South China Sea over some islands inhabited by goats that Japan claims or owns, with China threatening war over the claim, and China's use of passport maps to claim sovereignty over those islands, Taiwan, and bits of India. This thread is ending, but Mossad trained animals, and the location of Israeli Jewish building plans will no doubt remain the most newsworthy threats to world peace! The truly weird thing about the reports that Syria is assembling chem weapons into warheads is how anyone could possibly have hard intel on such activity.

- K2K

December 6, 2012 at 11:04am

"The truly weird thing about the reports that Syria is assembling chem weapons into warheads is how anyone could possibly have hard intel on such activity." Not weird at all. Satellite images as well as local informants will do the trick.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 11:26am

It is ironic that K@K who said that her/his subscription was expiring along with the subscriber, is still here, posting the usual cliches.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 11:32am

"Satellite images as well as local informants will do the trick." Aha! the same sources that still plague what happened in Benghazi on 9/11/12. Same sources that convinced so many to invade Iraq in 2003. end of thread.

- K2K

December 6, 2012 at 11:37am

thread stalker arnon: my tnr.com subscription ends Dec 27. Hope to keep ignoring you until then even when we are simultaneously reading Times of Israel.

- K2K

December 6, 2012 at 11:38am

As per - 11:32am EDT | arnon1, it is all the more evident that said poster is absolutely clueless about what irony is. K2K: I hope you will renew your subscription. Don't let arnon's malice get to you. I find it hard to believe what I read in his comments from time to time. Such open and unashamed poison and ill-will. And I'll bet he considers himself a good man. (A word to the unwise: there is nothing ironic in this comment).

- Noga

December 6, 2012 at 11:48am

Noga: thanks, but I really can not stand the post-Peretz tnr.com. The coverage of domestic issues is too much juvenile snark. And, I need a final solution with my dual housing crises by year-end. Should not be spending time online as a way to avoid that reality, especially here where the sane commenters are an endangered species. If I want to read ideologues, pjmedia is a good outlet, and no one there is allowed to bully other commenters for having a different opinion. Besides, I no longer feel comfortable posting much online. There are too many dots that are connecting to a very different America. One I no longer recognize. or belong in. see you elsewhere :)

- K2K

December 6, 2012 at 12:24pm

"As opposed to Abbas' declaration at the UN recognizing Israel, the maps on PA TV showed a Palestinian state replacing Israel." And the charter of the Likud party still insists about the destiny and right to Greater Israel from the Jordan to the sea. Maybe the two parties can negotiate about what sort of maps they will be allowed to show to their respective followers once they reach a peace agreement.

- roidubouloi

December 6, 2012 at 3:51pm

K2K has been threatening to leave for at least a year now. Maybe more. So far, nothing.

- roidubouloi

December 6, 2012 at 3:52pm

K2K "thread stalker arnon: my tnr.com subscription ends Dec 27. Hope to keep ignoring you until then even when we are simultaneously reading Times of Israel. I'll be here long after you are gone, KKKkkk. Though a months of kkkkk's is a long time it's better than another year. Hope you have the dignity of living up to your promise. Go post on the We(a)kly Standard. They will love you there. And take NOGA with you.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 5:22pm

"They really don't seem to like foreign policy in general, and particularly Middle East foreign policy under the new management." I don't know malahat, they had three or four pretty decent articles about the Gaza war and about Morsi's Egypt. As to Gaza Hamas wants to go to the international court and charge Israeli generals with human rights violations. It's of course a ploy to get more attention. I hope They do get their day in court and are asked to explain their antisemitic charter as well as their firing rockets at civilians. I nominate Dershowitz, Anthony Julius, and Irwin Cotler.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 5:31pm

I find it by googling 40 years of peace.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 6, 2012 at 6:52pm

I am not holding my breath about the quality of this magazine going forward, malahat. I read a number of pretty silly articles on domestic policy also. Will soon find out what the new owners are about. Peretz may have had extreme views on some issues but his articles were always worth reading and he did bring together some remarkable editors over the years. I hope the New Republic doesn't go the way of Partisan Review.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 7:04pm

My my my. The birds and the birds. How legal is it.....internationally speaking. http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-spy-bird-ruffles-sudanese-feathers/#comments Home > Israel & the Region Fowl play Spy bird ruffles Sudan’s feathersLocal media claim a captured hawk was carrying electronic equipment and a label marked ‘Israel Nature Authority’By STUART WINER December 6, 2012, 4:35 pm 1 Email Print Share A hawk flies over the Golan Heights. May 3, 2010. (photo credit: Hamad Almakt/Flash90)RELATED TOPICS ISRAEL-SUDAN RELATIONSHAWKKHARTOUM Sudanese media reported Thursday that officials had captured a bird carrying spying equipment for Israel. The Israeli outlet Walla news said that local Sudanese media reported that the bird was identified as Israeli because it was carrying Hebrew labels that read “Israel Nature Authority” and “Hebrew University Jerusalem.” While details of the story remain sketchy, the reports suggested there was a solar-powered device attached to the bird’s leg. Sudanese media claimed the device was capable of taking photos and sending them back to Israel. Relations between Israel and Sudan are already nonexistent, but tensions rose after the African country blamed Jerusalem for an October airstrike on a weapons factory in Khartoum. Israel is often the focus of wild wildlife conspiracy theories based on tracking devices attached to birds by Israeli ornithologists. In May Turkish authorities claimed to have caught a European bee-eater that, they said, may have had Mossad spying equipment implanted in one of its nostrils. The bird had an ostensibly incriminating band on its leg marked “Israel.” In 2011, Saudi Arabian media reported the capture of a griffon vulture that had Israeli “spying equipment,” marked “Tel Aviv University,” attached to one of its legs. Like us on Facebook Get our newsletter Follow us on Twitter READ MORE ON: Israel-Sudan relations, hawk, Khartoum, spying RECOMMENDED READING [What's this] Iran says it has ‘secret weapons’ (ISRAEL & THE REGION) If Iran tries to attack, Israel will reportedly target its missiles before they get off the ground (ISRAEL & THE REGION) Sponsored Fastest Supersonic Jet Will Be Unveiled at Farnborough International Airshow (JUSTLUXE) Shell lands near IDF position in Golan (ISRAEL & THE REGION) COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE RELATED TWEETS SaloumehZ RT @dkurdistan: Israel reportedly threatens to cancel Gaza truce if Islamic Jihad heads enter Strip Times of Israel timesofisrael.com/israel-reporte… about 1 hour ago · reply · retweet · favorite DanielSeidemann A "Flat Earth Society" inspired Times of Israel blog: "Now passing E1 – don’t blink" zite.to/WLFnTK via @zite about 1 hour ago · reply · retweet · favorite FlyOverVoter Does it smell like the north end of a southbound mule? : New Gaza perfume named for missile | The Times of Israel timesofisrael.com/new-gaza-perfu… about 1 hour ago · reply · retweet · favorite Armymiddleclass It's called dirty smelly bastards. New Gaza perfume named for missile | The Times of Israel timesofisrael.com/new-gaza-perfu… 4 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite Join the conversation

- JAIMECHUCH

December 6, 2012 at 7:05pm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/chris-hughes-once-a-new-media-pioneer-makes-bet-on-old-media-with-new-republic/2012/07/08/gJQA4fY5WW_story.html "Chris Hughes, once a new-media pioneer, makes bet on old media with New Republic" By Paul Farhi, Jul 09, 2012 01:42 AM EDT "Chris Hughes’s first business venture worked out nicely. As a teenager, he helped start something called Facebook. Within four years, working mostly part-time, Hughes vaulted into the ranks of the stratospherically wealthy. He wasn’t quite 23 years old. His second project met with a different kind of success. Hughes quit Facebook in early 2007 to work for a candidate named Barack Obama. Hughes developed and ran Obama’s social media operations. He was 24 when his boss won the White House. ,,, Some at the New Republic say Hughes wants to transform the magazine from a brainy but narrow politics-and-arts magazine into a more general-interest title like the New Yorker. But others suggest the goal is more attitudinal — to combine the cheeky authority of the Economist with the intellectual heft of the New York Review of Books, which happen to be two of Hughes’s favorite reads. “I don’t think he has any particular agenda politically or editorially, except to make us bigger, better and better read,” says Alec MacGillis, a staff writer. “My impression is he’s a true-believing liberal who genuinely worries about the state of the country and wants this to be a magazine that tackles the big questions.” ... Yet it’s still unclear where Hughes intends to steer the magazine. “My sense about Chris is that he’s more interested in influence than power,” says Wieseltier. “He’s concerned about the vulgarization of political discourse. He’s interested in the arts and culture. He’s a man with values and with means. But I don’t think he wants to take over the world.” Noah puts it a little differently: “He’s said all the right things, but I don’t know what the plan is. It’s probably evolving as we speak. I’m delighted we have some money behind us. . . . I’m delighted that his politics appear to be similar to my own. But I’d be lying if I said I knew what the grand plan is.”

- K2K

December 6, 2012 at 7:48pm

"Some at the New Republic say Hughes wants to transform the magazine from a brainy but narrow politics-and-arts magazine into a more general-interest title like the New Yorker." We don't need two New Yorkers, though we could use a good New Republic that's like the old Partisan Review.

- arnon1

December 6, 2012 at 9:07pm

More for the birds giving headaches to the Turks. Noty noty Mossad. http://www.timesofisrael.com/turkey-suspects-bird-was-spying-for-israel/

- JAIMECHUCH

December 6, 2012 at 9:20pm

And in the meantime: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/06/clinton-excludes-israel-again-from-counterterror-summit/ "According to CNS’s Patrick Goodenough, the State Department has acquiesced to the forum again excluding Israel. Goodenough reports, “Six months after the Obama administration said it was ‘committed’ to involving Israel in its flagship international counter-terrorism initiative, there has evidently been little progress….” The issue is not simply Israel’s exclusion, or the State Department’s belief that more intolerant states like Lebanon and Turkey might stay away if Israelis were at the same forum. Rather, the problem is that these radicals believe that U.S. acquiescence to their refusal to allow Israel’s inclusion is an implicit U.S. endorsement of their drive to delegitimize Israel completely. Clinton’s refusal to pull the carpet out from under the meeting by putting U.S. participation on the line not only undercuts global counter-terrorism by signaling that terrorism against Israel needn’t be on the table, but also convinces the Erdoğans of the world that momentum is on their side."

- Noga

December 6, 2012 at 10:08pm

The momentum is on their side. Only land-greedy Israelis and their apologists seem not to have noticed. The question is, when will Israel wake up and stop compromising its own security and future over the ridiculous and ultimately futile effort to steal land from Arab Palestine? Palestine was partitioned in 1947 into Jewish-majority and Arab-majority sections. Time for Israel to accept that, just as it was time for the Arabs to do so 65 years ago. The Arabs finally came around. Israel has not. Israelis may believe whatever they want about the justice of the partition, just as citizens of a nation-state can believe whatever they want about its laws. Being a member of society requires abiding by those laws regardless. Israel cannot survive as an outlaw, but appears to insist on trying. The price of religious nuttery.

- roidubouloi

December 6, 2012 at 10:35pm

" Palestine was partitioned in 1947 into Jewish-majority and Arab-majority sections. " The partition plan for Mandate Palestine stipulated two states for two peoples: one Jewish, one Arab. Israel accepted it. The Arabs rejected it and to this day have not accepted the partition plan. This is the simple truth of the matter. Momentum shmomentum. Israel will do what is in its best interest and only Israelis will decide what that interest is.

- Noga

December 6, 2012 at 11:32pm

BTW, Israel counts a 15% minority of Arabs within its citizenry, with full rights. Palestinians refuse to contemplate even one Jew living within their state. Palestinians, as we have seen, regard all of Israel as their prospective state.

- Noga

December 6, 2012 at 11:36pm

The Palestinians accept that Israel is the land west of the Green Line, the Jewish partition PLUS the land west of the 1949 armistice line. Israel refuses to accept that the land east of that line does not belong to it, despite being told repeatedly by the UNSC that that is the case. Today it is Israel that refuses to accept two states for two peoples, even after the General Assembly has recognized Palestine. While the Arabs refused to accept the partition 65 years ago, and lost the argument, today it is Israel that refuses to accept the partition, and will lose the argument, undermining its own legitimacy along the way as that depends on the partition. Israelis can decide whatever they want as being in their own best interests. The rest of the world will decide what is in its best interests. When the conflict is finally joined, Israel will be the loser. Israelis have a delusional belief in the extent of their own power. Without the support of the United States, Israel would be crushed. The United States will not indefinitely provide the backing for Israel's colonial adventure in Arab Palestine, because that is not in the United States' interest. The latest incident involving the terrorism conference from which Israel is excluded is a warning to that effect. It is not as if Israel has not been told, repeatedly, that the US objects to its settlement policy and instructed by the UNSC to desist. Only the belligerence of the Arabs has enabled Israel to avoid the inevitable response to its illegal acts. As the Palestinians appear to have learned that they are better off with political and legal methods than with violence and threats of violence, Israel will soon not be able to postpone its reckoning with the world. It is Israel that de-legitimizes Israel by tying itself to an illegitimate policy of settlement on land given by the UN to the Palestinian Arabs. While Israel's incorporation of all the land west of the armistice line was effectively condoned by the UN, because of continued Arab belligerence after 1949, the UNSC, in resolution 242, barred any such similar incorporation of land occupied in the Six Day War. Subsequent resolutions made that explicit. That is that. The permanent members of the UN may be immune to world sanctions. Israel is not.

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 12:06am

"the Jewish partition PLUS the Arab land west of the 1949 armistice line"

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 12:09am

Growth of Judea and Samaria brings happiness to all of us. Do the right thing. Le roi-du-merd is no more than a wild goose shouting in a vacuum. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157694 Israel Winning ‘Demographic War’ in Judea and Samaria Jewish growth in Judea and Samaria has outstripped Arab growth in the past three years – either because of or despite of Netanyahu. AAFont Size By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu First Publish: 7/10/2012, 10:52 AM Construction in Kiryat Arba Israel news photo: Flash 90 Jewish growth in Judea and Samaria has outstripped Arab growth in the past three years – either because of or despite of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 7, 2012 at 12:42am

More good news for Judea and Samaria. Go forward, grow and prosper. Don't let merd-du-bouloi, roi-du-merd, put you down with his delirious shouting. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/162895 Main > News > Inside Israel Efrat Hopes to be Part of Latest Israeli Construction Efrat mayor Oded Revivi: We've heard rumors that we'll get 600 new homes, and we certainly hope this will happen. AAFont Size By Elad Benari First Publish: 12/6/2012, 5:46 AM Efrat mayor Oded Revivi Yoni Kempinski Will the city of Efrat be included in the latest Israeli plans to build new Jewish homes? Its mayor Oded Revivi certainly hopes so. Speaking to Arutz Sheva on Wednesday, Revivi said that residents of Efrat heard that as part of the latest construction plans for Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem announced by Israel in response to the Palestinian Authority’s UN statehood bid, Efrat was to receive 600 new homes. However, he said, those were still unconfirmed rumors. “In the past all the rumors were realized, and now we are waiting for a final signature so we can sell 1,200 units, of which 600 were already approved a year ago,” he said. "Efrat has a number of neighborhoods that have not yet exhausted most of their potential,” Revivi said. “All the neighborhoods are connected in a sequence and every night you can see the residents of southern Efrat walking towards the northern neighborhoods.”

- JAIMECHUCH

December 7, 2012 at 12:51am

This is the rest of the post. For merd-du-bouloi discredit imaginary shouting. New housing for Efrat was approved in December of last year, after Israel’s ten-month construction freeze which failed to revive peace talks with the PA. If more housing received government approval, it would probably be snapped up instantly. The city is a place where both native-born Israelis and immigrant Anglos feel at home. “For a decade Efrat was a under construction freeze imposed by the government,” Revivi said. “Over the last decade the community has not grown demographically but in terms of people, the community has grown and multiplied. Couples and families have been living in secondary housing units. At the same time, the residents feel that it is very important to continue to develop the Gush Etzion area and therefore they continued to live here despite the freeze.” Last year, Efrat waged a sophisticated media campaign for renewal of construction. In one anonymously published video, a woman named Efrat was seen voicing disappointment over a man named Binyamin who neglected her after promising her the world. The video left people guessing, and eventually turned out to have been produced by the Efrat authority. The names of the protagonists referred to the town of Efrat and to Binyamin Netanyahu, who was not living up to promises he made to develop Efrat.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 7, 2012 at 12:58am

Very popular interview. Read and learn merd-du-bouloi http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/bill_maher_on_israel_uncut_and_uncensored HJ: Considering the reality of an unstable Middle East, an Iranian nuclear threat, a stalled peace process and a civil war in Syria, what’s the best thing Israel can do to engender moral support from the international community? BM: I think they’re over worrying about international goodwill. I hope they are, because it’s great to have but it doesn’t really feed the bulldog, you know? As my Jewish mother used to say, whenever there was a problem in the world, she would go, ‘Oh I know they’re gonna get around to blaming the Jews.’ [Laughs] And it’s kinda true. I mean, you know, it’s like somebody who’s always worrying whether everyone’s gonna like them -- Obama kinda had that problem in his first term -- but at a certain point you learn: You know what? A lot of people are not gonna like you no matter what you do, so just do what you’re gonna do. Just be yourself. And do what you think is right. And if they condemn you or hate you, that’s really kinda their problem.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 7, 2012 at 1:11am

"The Palestinians accept that Israel is the land west of the Green Line, the Jewish partition PLUS the land west of the 1949 armistice line." This of course is a blatant lie. Nowhere, never, have the Palestinians ever accepted the very principle of the partitioning of Mandate Palestine into two states for two people, one Arab, one Jewish. Never. If they did, the last 40-65 years would have looked very different. The fact is, they never renounced their charter, never renounced their 3 phase- program (WB+Gaza first, 47 borders second, and the whole of Israel third). In fact their continued efforts, both internally and externally to de-legitimize Israel and write it off the world's consciousness and conscience are very much in evidence everywhere. The rest of your comment about how Israel's historical and legal rights are being eroded by Arab successes in the UN has nothing to offer by way of a practical and just solution, except to repeat that it is the will of the International community that it be so, regardless of UN resolutions, signed treaties, etc etc. You seem to believe that the fact that Jews live in the Arab WB is responsible for the world's wish to disregard International Law in the service of Arab intransigence. This of course does not make the disregard any less venal. It means that the Ïnternational community" has ganged up once again on the only Jewish state in the world, a state that is located on 0.1% of the Middle East. I would have greater respect for your opinions here if you did not try to dress them up as based on pragmatism and a correct interpretation of International law. You express nothing but acceptance and agreement with the whims and contempt of the International community for its own institutions and loathing for the current "Jew" in their midst. As if it is a force of nature and ethical thinking is not only inapplicable, but irrational, too. We were at that point before in our history, a few times (expulsion of Jews from England, expulsion of Jews from Spain, the Holocaust, expulsion of Jews from the Arab lands). We know what happened at these momentous events. And why.

- Noga

December 7, 2012 at 6:59am

What we have here is yet another display of the brilliance of Israeli self-pity in thrall to the Likud/Jabotinsky ideology that the Palestinian Arabs exist at the sufferance of Israel. They will not be granted citizenship and political rights in a unitary state, as that would be the demographic demise of the Jewish demand for a Jewish-majority state. Nor will Israel recognize their state in the occupied territory allocated by the UN for the Palestinian Arab state. Israel rejects both the one-state solution and the two-state solution. What it wants is no solution for as long as possible in the hope that this will somehow allow it to keep the illegal settlements as part of Israel. If you cannot get what you want, delay, delay, delay. Israel has been admonished since the start of illegal settlement, by the UNSC and by its ally the United States, that it must refrain from doing so. The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a party, prohibits it. Israel's own counsel, now a judge in Israel, opined to the government at the outset of the colonization of Arab Palestine that it was illegal to settle the Occupied Territory, but the opinion was suppressed by the government so that the illegal settlement could go forward. Following Oslo, Israel continued to expand settlements, claiming that it was not unilaterally altering the status of the Occupied Territory in violation of Oslo because the settlements were temporary and could be removed as part of a final status agreement. The Arabs said Israel was lying and violating the Oslo accord. It is now clear that the Arabs were right, as Israel refuses to remove the illegal settlements in order to make peace. The Arabs do recognize a two-state solution, as they have since Oslo. Most recently, Abbas has said publicly: "Palestine for me now is '67 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital. This is Palestine for me. I am a refugee, I am living in Ramallah, I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts is Israel." With all of the self-pity on display here and in the press in Israel, one would think that the Arabs forced Israel to settle the West Bank (and Gaza) illegally, in knowing violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and flagrant violation of UNSC resolutions that are binding on Israel as a member of the UN. As such, Israelis have convinced themselves that justice requires that they be allowed to keep the illegal settlements. They demand that Palestine legitimize them as the price for peace and the end of occupation. The expectation that Israel will instead comport itself in compliance with its international obligations is met with even more self-pity and bathetic accusations of anti-Semitism. "Why are we held to a higher standard than every Third World despotism," Israel asks, "if not for anti-Semitism?" "Why are we, who never stop touting ourselves as the only democracy in the Middle East, the only technologically advanced nation in the Middle East, the ally of the United States in the Middle East, expected actually to behave as if we are such?" The just solution is to honor the partition of Palestine into two states, the very cornerstone of the existence of a Jewish-majority Israel over the objections of the Arab population of Palestine. Quite obviously, that means that Israel does not get to keep the fruits of its illegal settlement enterprise. The injustice of that enterprise has been visited by Israel upon the Arabs, not the other way around. One just solution would be for the settlements to be abandoned in exchange for Palestine's abandonment of claims west of the Green Line. Two states for two people, as noga solemnly intones. Or Israel can negotiate to maintain some or all of the settlements as a part of sovereign Palestine, understanding that for the Palestinians to concede this there will have to be some comparable Israeli concession, such as recognition of a Palestinian right of return west of the Green Line. Or some combination of abandonment of settlements and their recognition as part of sovereign Palestine. But if settlements are to remain in Palestine, Israel should not expect to continue is system of apartheid in the West Bank. That means that Arab Palestinians will be able to live in those settlements too. It is not difficult to discern that it is not justice for Israel to hold both peace and the end of the occupation hostage to the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the illegal settlements, settlements that Israel has always known, and has repeatedly been told, are illegal. The Arabs have recognized the UN partition plan, and then some, by conceding to Israel the parts of the Arab partition that have were incorporated into Israel after 1949. Israel today refuses to accept the reality that partition means that not all the land is Israel's and Israel does not get to pick and choose the pieces it wants. It is Israel that will not accept two states for two people (unless of course what noga really means by this is ethnic cleansing of Israel). Nor will Israel accept one state for two people. Israel refuses to make peace, because it cannot have the land it covets and peace too. That is not only unjust and illegal, it is a threat to world peace that the world will not tolerate much longer if the government of Palestine continues to reject violence. And then, of course, right-wing Israelis will claim to be the victims of anti-Semitism.

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 8:41am

"...The truth winds like river water between the two positions. ..." http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-the-muddy-footsteps-of-the-israeli-armys-clear-eyed-bedouin-trackers/ "In the silent footsteps of the Israeli army’s sharp-eyed Bedouin trackers" "They spend their waking hours on the front line, protecting sovereign Israel and West Bank settlements from terrorist infiltrators. And then some go home to unrecognized villages, slated for destruction" By Mitch Ginsburg December 6, 2012, 3:03 pm "... Israel’s borders are marked, observed and patrolled. There are concrete walls and concertina wires, mines and “smart” fences, cameras and thermal devices, and yet each and every violation of Israel’s sovereignty — whether in order to sell drugs, deliver weapons or lay ambushes — is first investigated by the very definition of the low-tech soldier: a tracker. Nearly all of the IDF’s trackers are Bedouin. They daily patrol Israel’s borders with Jordan, Egypt, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and parts of the Palestinian Authority. They investigate break-ins along the border fences, interpreting the narrative of the infiltration, and arrive first at the scene of terrorist crimes, unraveling the chain of events. ... the trackers often point the security services in the right direction. In March 2011, when five members of the Fogel family were murdered in their homes in Itamar, trackers were the ones who pieced together the initial narrative of what happened. They explained that two men had entered the settlement, approached a house, stolen something, returned to the fence, and then returned to a different house and committed the murders. They also traced the footprints back to the village of Awarta, which was placed under military closure until the killers were found. ... The ironies of life as an Arab officer in the region were not lost on him. “I don’t have any other place,” he explained. “This is where I was born and this is where I will die. I can’t go live in Jordan or Egypt. And the army is the only framework in which no one ever calls me an Arab or anything like that.” "

- K2K

December 7, 2012 at 9:35am

Nothing is more base and totalitarian than mindless conformity with self-serving convenient "truth". This "truth"is the only truth roi is capable of. Look at his arguments and justifications for erasing Jewish history, Jewish rights, Jewish suffering from the matrix of politics in today's world, and you'll see a Stalinist, by which I mean the follower of a doctrine that says that in order to justify the injustices of the present and pass them as the only logical justice and rationality, all that needs to be done is re-write the Past. Part and parcel of this doctrine is the unashamed personal slander and malicious interpretation of events and utterances. We Jews know how the law has been twisted and misread in order to criminalize us. Jews lived in the West Bank for centuries, except for the brief period between 1948-67, when it was under Arab control. They ought to be able to live there now, without being pariahed for it. And if roi brings up Palestinians' right to live in Israel, then he should remember that the UN resolution on which they based RoR SPECIFICALLY stipulates the condition that be allowed back provided they agree to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors (never mind that it calls on ALL refugees to be allowed back into their homelands, not that any Jew in his right mind would ever wish to return to Iraq or Syria or Egypt, of course). Let me repeat: Nowhere, never, have the Palestinians ever accepted the very principle of the partitioning of Mandate Palestine into two states for two people, one Arab, one Jewish. Never. This is key. What roi is pushing for is two states: One Jewish-Arab. The other: Exclusively Arab. That's NOT what the UN 181 intended.

- Noga

December 7, 2012 at 9:47am

The right of return claimed by the Palestinians is grounded in the Geneva Conventions that stipulate that anyone who departs his country is free to return. There are legitimate arguments about how to observe this given the long state of war that made a return or Palestinian refugees impossible as a matter of security. As well, it is unclear whether this applies to descendents (I would argue not otherwise there are potentially billions of people with claims to be entitled to live elsewhere than they do). Israel wants to extinguish these claims for obvious demographic reasons. But the price for extinguishing Arab claims west of the Green Line is quite clearly the extinguishment Jewish claims east of the Green Line. Two states for two people. The Arabs accept this. Israel does not. It continues to assert Jewish claims to the east while denying Arab claims to the west. Two states for Israel, none for the Arabs. noga says: "Let me repeat: Nowhere, never, have the Palestinians ever accepted the very principle of the partitioning of Mandate Palestine into two states for two people, one Arab, one Jewish. Never. This is key." Repeat all you like. This is completely false. The Palestinians recognized Israel at Oslo and have consistently reaffirmed that recognition. It could be embodied in a peace settlement that provides for Israel's security, making a secure reality out of the principle of the partition, but Israel refuses to make peace unless it is allowed to keep the land it has illegally taken from Arab Palestine, declining to accept the partition. This is the key to the present impasse. Of course, if by two states for two people noga means the ethnic cleansing of Israel, that was never contemplated by the partition plan embodied in resolution 181. Quite the contrary, the rights of minorities were to be protected. Both Arabs and Jews were made refugees by Israel's War of Independence. If refugee claims are to be extinguished, they will all have to be extinguished, which includes the proxy claim of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Ethnic cleansing of Israel appears to be what noga wants but coyly refuses to say out loud. It is certainly not a Jewish presence in Arab Palestine that she seeks. She and Israel refuse that too. noga also says, "What roi is pushing for is two states: One Jewish-Arab. The other: Exclusively Arab. That's NOT what the UN 181 intended." This is also a falsehood. I have consistently said here that the far better solution for all concerned would be for the settlements to remain in Palestine, making it an Arab-Jewish state, and for an equal number of Palestinians to be welcomed to return to Israel, the Jewish-Arab state. I have also said that it should be for Israel to decide what numbers are to be allowed as returnees, or proxy returnees, on either side. But, if Israel insists on zero Arabs returning to Israel, then it must be zero settlers remaining in Palestine. Either the claims of returnees or their proxies are mutually recognized or they are mutually extinguished. It cannot work both ways, particularly since the settlements are a flagrant violation of human rights law. This does not entail erasing Jewish history or re-writing the past, unless by this noga means trying to write the centuries-long Arab presence in Palestine out of history. That is a bunch of over-wrought nonsense and yet another form of the bathetic accusation of anti-Semitism when it is Israel that is violating the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs. That is the fact, in the present, not as history. Putting scare quotes around "truth" doesn't render the truth any less true. Nothing in the history justified Israel's flagrant and knowing violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention or UNSC resolutions. If one or another self-serving interpretation of history did suffice for that purpose, then the Arabs were perfectly justified in refusing to accept the partition plan and would be justified in continuing to refuse to accept it and making war until they succeed in destroying the State of Israel. The historical claims were litigated before the UN and settled by the partition plan. That is over. The historical claims on both sides in contradiction to the partition plan, whatever those claims may be, are finished, done, liquidated in the resolution of the world body. The partition must be accepted by both parties as the outcome, unless they choose freely to write a different alternative by mutual agreement. The Arabs now accept the finality of the partition. Israel refuses. That is the truth of the matter.

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 10:37am

"Let me repeat: Nowhere, never, have the Palestinians ever accepted the very principle of the partitioning of Mandate Palestine into two states for two people, one Arab, one Jewish. Never. This is key." ... This is completely false." Then it should not be difficult to produce the document or announcement that supports this claim of falsehood. I'm talking about an affirmation, unambiguous, about two states for two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab. Not YOUR understanding of what this or that means when it is obviously clear it does not mean it but something else. Don't waste so many words. Nobody reads them anyway. Just provide the quote and a link.

- Noga

December 7, 2012 at 11:13am

[Just in case the Peretz-free TNR.com decides not to let Robert Satloff post here again]: http://www.timesofisrael.com/if-all-else-fails-us-will-hit-iran-in-2013-say-former-top-advisers-to-obama-and-bush/ "...During an on-stage discussion with Ross and Abrams halfway through the evening, Washington Institute director Robert Satloff asked the former officials, “Will either America or Israel employ preventive military action against Iran’s nuclear program – yes or no?” The two replied in unison, “yes.” “Will this happen in 2013?” Satloff pressed. “Yes,” said Ross. “Yes, I agree,” added Abrams. Obama’s “preference is to have diplomacy succeed,” Ross clarified to The Times of Israel after the panel discussion. But, he added, Obama is able and willing to carry out a military strike. “If [Obama’s] position was going to be not to use force, he would have accepted the objective of containment [of a nuclear Iran]. He did not. He adopted the objective of prevention. That doesn’t mean you want force to be the case. What it means is, fundamentally, that if diplomacy doesn’t succeed you’re prepared to do it. And I believe he is.” Asked if the Obama administration had an interest in pressing for a new Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, Ross suggested the US had a more limited view of its role than in the past. “I don’t think it’s the president’s view that somehow the United States can wave a magic wand and you can have peace,” he said. “If you go back to an interview he gave at the end of the first year [of Obama’s first term], he said [bringing the sides together to discuss peace] has proven more difficult than he hoped it would be.” He insisted that “It’s very important to try to preserve a two-state outcome,” and that “I don’t think the administration will walk away, and I don’t think we should walk away. If you can create a set of circumstances where it looks like there’s an opportunity, I think the administration would make a major effort. But to assume the administration will make a major effort as if there’s an opening [when there isn’t one,] that remains to be seen.” "

- K2K

December 7, 2012 at 11:21am

[clarifying that the Satloff discussion was this week]: "If all else fails, US will hit Iran in 2013, say former top advisers to Obama and Bush. At Washington Institute gala, Dennis Ross, Elliott Abrams and outgoing US ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey insist the president will strike next year if diplomacy doesn’t succeed" By Haviv Rettig Gur December 7, 2012, 9:11 am http://www.timesofisrael.com/if-all-else-fails-us-will-hit-iran-in-2013-say-former-top-advisers-to-obama-and-bush/

- K2K

December 7, 2012 at 11:25am

You're not looking very hard, noga: Letter from Arafat to Rabin: "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The PLO commits itself...to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations...the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators...the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_%E2%80%93_Palestine_Liberation_Organization_letters_of_recognition#1:_Letter_from_Yasser_Arafat_to_Prime_Minister_Rabin "I visited Safed before once. But I want to see Safed. It's my right to see it, but not to live there. Palestine now for me is the '67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever... This is Palestine for me. I am [a] refugee, but I am living in Ramallah... I believe that [the] West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts (are) Israel." http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/03/israel-palestine-refugee-remarkes.html _______________________ Arafat was suckered at Oslo. He recognized Israel, agreed to settle outstanding matters peacefully, and Israel took the peace that ensued as an opportunity to continue to settle the West Bank. Israel denied that it was violating its undertaking at Oslo not unilaterally to change the status of the West Bank by claiming that the settlements were only "temporary" because the could be removed as part of a final agreement, a patent subterfuge. Indeed, now Israel refuses to remove them claiming that it is too politically difficult. Israel expects the Palestinians to accept Israel and abandon the claims of Arab refugees west of the Green Line, politically extremely difficult for them to do, but doesn't expect to have to make the political decision to undo its illegal settlements. The refugees actually have claims with legal underpinnings in humanitarian law. The settlements are a clear violation of humanitarian law. Israel's position is preposterous. It wants the legitimate claims of the Palestinians to be abandoned, its own illegitimate settlements to be legitimized, and refuses to end its occupation until it gets what it wants. The CBC article also said this: During his interview, Abbas vowed to prevent another violent Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, like that of last decade that saw suicide bombers detonate their explosives on buses and in cafes. "We don't want to use terror...we want to use diplomacy, we want to use politics, we want to use negotiations, we want to use peaceful resistance," he said. The unseemly response of Israel to Palestinians accepting peaceful means to pursue political goals is to try an obtain an agreement that Israeli officials will not be hauled into the International Criminal Court to answer for illegal actions. The Palestinians quite properly declined, with Erekat saying that the way to stay out of criminal court is not to commit crimes that have to be answered for. By Israel's lights, the Palestinians are not to employ violent means to settle disputes, nor are they to employ proper legal and diplomatic channels to settle disputes, they are just supposed to accept Israel's illicit demands. Netanyahu declares that Israel will punish them until they do. Israel disgraces the Jews and the western world.

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 5:16pm

You are repeating yourself in the hope that people won't notice. I said: an affirmation, unambiguous, about two states for two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab. Not YOUR understanding of what this or that means when it is obviously clear it does not mean it but something else. Arafat, his hand still warm from shaking Rabin's hand, rushed to Johannesburg where he called for Jihad for Jerusalem. Abbas, we know, hastened to correct his momentary slip within a day of making that statement. Nowhere has any Palestinian leader EVER accepted the principle of two states for two peoples, one Arab, one Jewish. This is not an oversight, a neglect, or just didn't get around to saying it. It is deliberate and it is consistent. It is not at all a complex notion to understand and express. So what's the obstacle? Why wouldn't they just say it? Why are their policies and actions contradicting this very simple principle? Nobody reads your voluminous comments, roi. It's a waste of your time. Try to make your point more succinctly.

- Noga

December 7, 2012 at 6:20pm

with Peretz gone, roid only has Netanyahu (and Texas) to rail against. Considering the daily fluidity in so many Arab nations, and the baby steps in the Hamas-Fatah 'reconciliation', why assume anything now? I confess I have been reading roid's comments the last page or two, to understand noga's responses. well then. back to House Hunters International.

- K2K

December 7, 2012 at 7:42pm

When will you be leaving us, K2K? Soon? Or shall we have another year of you threatening to cancel your subscription? _______________________ A new tactic, noga. You just keep repeating your denial of reality and figure that is just as good as reality. Of course, it is rather obvious by now that what you mean by two states for two peoples is not a Jewish-majority state and an Arab-majority state, but ethnic cleansing. No, no Arab leader has ever agreed to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from Palestine. Nor will that ever happen. Nor did resolution 181 contemplate such a thing. You insist upon: "an affirmation, unambiguous, about two states for two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab." Here you have it, from Mahmud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority and as of now the Palestinian head of state: "I visited Safed before once. But I want to see Safed. It's my right to see it, but not to live there. Palestine now for me is the '67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever... This is Palestine for me. I am [a] refugee, but I am living in Ramallah... I believe that [the] West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts (are) Israel." You will continue to insist never-the-less that this is not exactly what it is. Meanwhile, Israel insists the Palestine surrender to it the parts of the Arab partition that Israel has illegally settled and demands to retain. When has any leader of Israel affirmed that Israel will accept Palestinian sovereignty over the Arab partition not already incorporated into Israel in 1949? When has any Israeli leader ever affirmed that two states for two people means that the Palestinians actually get their state without Israel helping itself to pieces upon which it has no legal claim, any more than the Arabs can claim sovereignty to the Jewish partition? Never. And surely not Netanyahu who set himself the task of undermining the Oslo accords from the gitgo. Why are the policies and actions of Israel forever contradicting the very simple principle of two states for two peoples? The Arabs can say what they want; they don't make the policy between the Jordan and the sea. Israel does. Its policy is quite unambiguous, and it clearly does not accept the UN partition. 65 years ago, the Arabs would not accept the UN writ. Now it is Israel that refuses. There are no words, at least in English, adequately to describe hypocrisy and cynicism of such magnitude. Maybe in Hebrew there are.

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 11:06pm

I repeat myself, noga, in the hope that people WILL notice. Some people require many, many repetitions in order to understand simple things. They throw dust in the air and wriggle and jiggle in every imaginable way to try to obfuscate. And then it is necessary to repeat the basics again, and again, and yet again. You wouldn't happen to know anyone who will attempt any imaginable verbal tactic to obfuscate, would you?

- roidubouloi

December 7, 2012 at 11:09pm

The Galicianer dishonest self hatred Jew has finally described his own personality. And has followed as ordered to be brief. He is a disturbed person full of hatred and very disoriented. Of course he is an enemy of Israel, nothing new here. And after all that is his privilege. There must be a full degree of suffering hating all the time. Being so dishonest, unable to recognize the real world. Do I feel sorry for him? How can you feel sorry for an evil disoriented individual? You can't.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 8, 2012 at 12:05am

It has been said that there is no stronger enemy of the Jews than a self hatred Jew. And roi..dent, hemor..roid is a true example , fortunately he is unimportant, just an irritation , just background noise. He is very negative and contributes nothing. Just a pain in the ass.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 8, 2012 at 12:13am

Abbas promptly denied his statement on Safed. But you wouldn't hear it from hemor..roid, roid..ent. Typical from the Galicianer dishonest self hatred Jew. Demonizing Israel.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 8, 2012 at 12:22am

Ain't you happy you don't live in south Sudan, hemor..roid? http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/07/253840.html South Sudan blogger and government critic killed Friday, 07 December 2012

- JAIMECHUCH

December 8, 2012 at 12:31am

Still here? Roidododo must not have much to do with his time. His presence here shows what an empty life the pretentious dodo leads.

- arnon1

December 8, 2012 at 2:46pm