The Goat Pen

(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

Red Bird wrote:The other point often in dispute is section "b"

(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

Note that the Palestinians are not mentioned anywhere in Resolution 242.

Larry Miller wrote:A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me. I'm a giver.

Here we go: the Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians.

It's a made up word.

Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation." So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs From The Same General Area Who Are In Deep Denial About Never Being Able To Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun.

No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course-that's where the real fun is-but mostly they want Israel.

Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel-or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it-for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something. It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim MidEast.

Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one. Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it.

And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea?

Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshalling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents?

Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away. However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful.

Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint. If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan. (Hey, wait a minute, that's actually not such a bad idea... uh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)

eCat wrote: if someone could tell me one significant example of how an alliance with Israel serves Americas goals I'd love to hear it.

Everyone tells me we must support the only democracy in the middle east. Yet there is no reciprocity in the agreement.

if someone could tell me one significant example of how an alliance with Israel serves Americas goals I'd love to hear it.

Owlman wrote:

eCat wrote: if someone could tell me one significant example of how an alliance with Israel serves Americas goals I'd love to hear it.

Everyone tells me we must support the only democracy in the middle east. Yet there is no reciprocity in the agreement.

exerpt from eCat rant. Was hoping someone would answer this question.

innocentbystander wrote:

Owlman wrote:

eCat wrote: if someone could tell me one significant example of how an alliance with Israel serves Americas goals I'd love to hear it.

Everyone tells me we must support the only democracy in the middle east. Yet there is no reciprocity in the agreement.

exerpt from eCat rant. Was hoping someone would answer this question.

http://www.goatpen.net/viewtopic.php?f= ... =740#p5635

It is not that it serves America's goals so much as (helping Israel) makes Americans who feel "gulity" are free to feel "less guilty"....

You don't care about reciprocity (so much) if you feel that you have "wronged" your partner in some terrible manner in the past.

eCat wrote:

innocentbystander wrote:

Owlman wrote:exerpt from eCat rant. Was hoping someone would answer this question.

http://www.goatpen.net/viewtopic.php?f= ... =740#p5635

It is not that it serves America's goals so much as (helping Israel) makes Americans who feel "gulity" are free to feel "less guilty"....

You don't care about reciprocity (so much) if you feel that you have "wronged" your partner in some terrible manner in the past.

What did we do wrong?

Stormaktstiden wrote:America staunchly defends Israel because of how profoundly Jewish influence inside the United States affects our politics. We have no strategic or economic interests in proportion to their influence over our policies. China demonstrably has a much more profound effect on our National Security and our economic stability and they do not have anywhere near the influence Israel has over us, matter of fact in most matters they directly oppose us. Great Britain is a longer and much more trusted allie, yet even they have nowhere near the inexplicable influence over our politics.

Therefore since there are no strategic, economic, or even geographic answers that are sufficient to explain the question, the answer must by elimination be political.

Anyone that criticizes President Obama is ignorant of the factual circumstance. For example, the United Nations has passed more resolutions condeming Israeli aggression than it has all other countries combined http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Un ... ing_Israel. Israel is in direction violation of interational law or more precisely Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter which empowers the UN to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take military and nonmilitary action to "restore international peace and security" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_VI ... ns_Charter.


Has Israel so completely polluted the media and our politics that simply asking them to comply with international law is an affront to them? To the point that our own President is publicly chastised by these conniving beggars?

It is not so much that they have polluted our media as it is what they have done to the Democratic Party.

Dora wrote:

It is not so much that they have polluted our media as it is what they have done to the Democratic Party.

What have they done to the Democratic Party?