This Israel thing...

UN Security Council passes resolution condemning certain Israeli settlements. USA has always vetoed these types of resolutions as long standing policy that the UN is not the way to go about resolving this and that the USA has recognized Israels right to these settlements (in contested areas).

USA instead of casting a veto vote, abstained. A last fuck you to Bibi from Obama.

Oh the irony..

Obama basically sent a fuck you to our most reliable ally in the middle east for the last 70 years.

Completely unnecessary and gained nothing for us. Mostly done out of spite because Israel wouldn't bend to his will.

If you can't trust an ally who hired Jonathon Pollard from the Navy Field Operational Intelligence Office to spy on theUS for them, who can you trust?

GRR Spartan wrote:If you can't trust an ally who hired Jonathon Pollard from the Navy Field Operational Intelligence Office to spy on theUS for them, who can you trust?

And again you're angry at an ally for doing what we do to them. We spy on every country in the world, why wouldn't we expect them to spy on us?



Anyway Cameron if you want some background from the opposition to the President on this:

CHARLES HILL: WHAT OBAMA HAS DONE

OBAMA’S U.N. PERFIDY

Anne Bayefsky is a leading human rights advocate. She is Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, and President of Human Rights Voices.

The vicious condemnation of Israel at the UN Security Council on December 23, 2016 is a watershed moment in U.S.-UN relations – albeit not as President Obama hoped. Following the vote of fourteen in favor and one American abstention, Palestinian representative Riyadh Mansour and American Ambassador Samantha Power exchanged a telling handshake. Evidently, President Obama believes that he has put one over on Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the incoming Trump administration. But here’s another possibility: treachery at the UN will not be cost free.

Let’s be absolutely clear about what has just happened. The Palestinians have completed the hijacking of every major UN institution. The 2016 General Assembly has adopted nineteen resolutions condemning Israel and nine critical of all other UN states combined. The 2016 Commission on the Status of Women adopted one resolution condemning Israel and zero on any other state. The 2016 UN Human Rights Council celebrated ten years of adopting more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than any other place on earth. And now – to the applause of the assembled – the Palestinians can add the UN Security Council to their list

.

I guess Israel is the worst country in the world....that seems fair.

And 1 more....

Perfidious Obama’s Last Betrayal

That lasted until January 2009, when President Obama came into office and began shunning Israel. Then came last Friday, when Barack Obama ordered our UN ambassador to abstain rather than veto a UN Security Council resolution that declared Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank illegal, and those territories illegally “occupied.” Israel was thus delegitimized and ordered to return to the borders it had before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

President Obama’s enmity toward Israel, though often denied, has been obvious since his inauguration.

Obama’s approach was historically ignorant. Three times since 2000, Israeli prime ministers have offered land for peace and been rebuffed. Ehud Barak offered up East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank in a plan designed by Bill Clinton, but Yassir Arafat, then Palestinian “president,” walked out of the talks. In 2005, Ariel Sharon withdrew all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and pulled Israel back across the pre-1967 borders. The Palestinians answered by raining missiles on Israel from Gaza. In 2008, Ehud Olmert offered essentially 100 percent of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and a divided Jerusalem to be the capital of both the still non-existent nation of Palestine and Israel. Mahmoud Abbas took the offer to study it and left never returned to the negotiations.

And BTW this isn't wholly a Dem/Rep thing - Chuck Schumer and other D's will be leading the charge against this.

Bebe Netanyhu has been throwing hs weight around trying to dictate US foreign polcy in the Middle East on his terms for years.

He wants US mlitary aid, US financial ad with zero strings attached like continuing annexation and building displacing Palestinians who have owned land for centuries.

I don't look forward to a US President beholden to Israel and Russia.

I can't wait to see how President Trump juggles Russian/Iran interests and Russian/Syrian interests with Israeli interests.

I can only imagine the geopolitical genius being copied and pasted into this thread...

Just heard on CNN this is nothing but posturing until Trump's Isreal Ambassador, Friedmen gets in there who will be throwing gasoline on the fire

Trump has already stated his son-in-law Jared Kushner could help broker an agreement between Israel and Palestine.

Highly probable Jared Kushner advised Trump on the appointment of Friedman.

This gong to be exciting.

Well it was bi partisan policy for the US to support Israel for 50-60 years. It's still R policy and a rump of the D party is still there but I would guess a majority of the D party has moved on to a neutral or anti Israel position. You could come up with a variety of reasons for that I'll speculate on a few at the risk of being called name or getting my head snapped off.

Dems simply oppose Israel because R's support them.
Blacks became more powerful within the D party and historically there has been a $$ tension in the Jewish/Black relationship.
This exists even though Jews were among the strongest supporters of civil rights in the 60s.
Dems oppose Israel because Christians are strong supporters of Israel and many Dems are not especially enamored of Christians.

I really can't explain it all but we went from 90% plus support in Congress from both parties to 90% of R's and maybe 20-40% of Dems. This has occurred over a period of 20 years or so....

One more article I ran across tonight:

Obama's Disgraceful and Harmful Legacy on Israel

For all eight years of the Obama administration, Democrats have made believe that Barack Obama is a firm and enthusiastic supporter and defender of the Jewish state. Arguments to the contrary were not only dismissed but angrily denounced as the products of nothing more than vicious partisanship. Obama's defenders repeatedly used the trope that "Israel should not be a partisan issue," as if Obama's views and actions were beyond reproach. A whole corps of Jewish leaders, some at the major organizations and many from Chicago, showed far greater loyalty to Obama than to the tradition of true nonpartisanship when it came to Middle East policy.

All of those arguments have been ground into dust by Obama's action Friday allowing a nasty and harmful anti-Israel resolution to pass the United Nations Security Council. Just weeks before leaving office, he could not resist the opportunity to take one more swipe at Israel—and to do real harm. So he will leave with his record on Israel in ruins, and he will leave Democrats even worse off.

Herbie Green wrote:Just heard on CNN this is nothing but posturing until Trump's Isreal Ambassador, Friedmen gets in there who will be throwing gasoline on the fire

I do not know if it is posturing, but I have seen people claiming this is unprecedented. That is not true. The Reagan administration twice abstained, and thus allowed, UNSCR 592 and 605 to pass 14 to 0. It was the goal of each resolution to reaffirm "that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, is applicable to the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem." Making the Geneva Convention relevant is the Convention's statement that an "Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

During the Bush administration, the U.S. voted for UNSCR 1515, which endorsed a plan entitled Roadmap for Peace. The Roadmap actually called for a freeze on all new settlements. So what happened last week was not without precedent. These are just three examples - there are plenty of other examples from a range of administrations crossing party lines - of the U.S. abstaining from, or voting for, resolutions that condemn Israel one way or another. I used these resolutions as examples because they took up settlement issues.

Based only on votes, Obama has a decent track record of protecting Israel in front of the UNSC. If I am correct, through his first seven years, last week was the first time the Obama administration failed to block a resolution critical of Israel. On top of that, the U.S. and Israel just inked a $38 billion military aid package.

Here is all I have to say about this issue. Israeli national security and U.S. national security are not always perfectly aligned. Sometimes what is in the interest of Israel is not in the Interest of the U.S. The U.S. must always do what it feels is right for U.S. national security.

Nice middle finger from Obama but it really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. The USA will never give Israel more than a slap on the wrist because they're our strategic military partner in the Middle-East. Without Israel, our presence and influence in the Middle-East is dramatically weakened.

With that said, Netanyahu is insane and Israel should have returned the Palestinian lands decades ago.

AnomanderRake wrote:Nice middle finger from Obama but it really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. The USA will never give Israel more than a slap on the wrist because they're our strategic military partner in the Middle-East. Without Israel, our presence and influence in the Middle-East is dramatically weakened.

With that said, Netanyahu is insane and Israel should have returned the Palestinian lands decades ago.

Ever done much reading on "the Palestinian lands"?

LooseGoose wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Nice middle finger from Obama but it really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. The USA will never give Israel more than a slap on the wrist because they're our strategic military partner in the Middle-East. Without Israel, our presence and influence in the Middle-East is dramatically weakened.

With that said, Netanyahu is insane and Israel should have returned the Palestinian lands decades ago.

Ever done much reading on "the Palestinian lands"?

Yes, I took an elective on Israel and the Middle-East at MSU which was taught by a fairly neutral Jewish professor. The class covered the origins of the Israeli state and relations in the Middle-East all the way through to modern day.

My final project was on modern Israeli entrepreneurship and I have maintained interest in the politics of the region since. I would say that I am fairly well versed in the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as its history.

AnomanderRake wrote:

LooseGoose wrote:

Ever done much reading on "the Palestinian lands"?

Yes, I took an elective on Israel and the Middle-East at MSU which was taught by a fairly neutral Jewish professor. The class covered the origins of the Israeli state and relations in the Middle-East all the way through to modern day.

My final project was on modern Israeli entrepreneurship and I have maintained interest in the politics of the region since. I would say that I am fairly well versed in the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as its history.

In before the flood of totally not biased links.

Turtleneck wrote:

Herbie Green wrote:Just heard on CNN this is nothing but posturing until Trump's Isreal Ambassador, Friedmen gets in there who will be throwing gasoline on the fire

I do not know if it is posturing, but I have seen people claiming this is unprecedented. That is not true. The Reagan administration twice abstained, and thus allowed, UNSCR 592 and 605 to pass 14 to 0. It was the goal of each resolution to reaffirm "that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, is applicable to the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem." Making the Geneva Convention relevant is the Convention's statement that an "Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

During the Bush administration, the U.S. voted for UNSCR 1515, which endorsed a plan entitled Roadmap for Peace. The Roadmap actually called for a freeze on all new settlements. So what happened last week was not without precedent. These are just three examples - there are plenty of other examples from a range of administrations crossing party lines - of the U.S. abstaining from, or voting for, resolutions that condemn Israel one way or another. I used these resolutions as examples because they took up settlement issues.

Based only on votes, Obama has a decent track record of protecting Israel in front of the UNSC. If I am correct, through his first seven years, last week was the first time the Obama administration failed to block a resolution critical of Israel. On top of that, the U.S. and Israel just inked a $38 billion military aid package.

Here is all I have to say about this issue. Israeli national security and U.S. national security are not always perfectly aligned. Sometimes what is in the interest of Israel is not in the Interest of the U.S. The U.S. must always do what it feels is right for U.S. national security.

I am sure Goose's propaganda rag was very critical of those actions as well

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:

Yes, I took an elective on Israel and the Middle-East at MSU which was taught by a fairly neutral Jewish professor. The class covered the origins of the Israeli state and relations in the Middle-East all the way through to modern day.

My final project was on modern Israeli entrepreneurship and I have maintained interest in the politics of the region since. I would say that I am fairly well versed in the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as its history.

In before the flood of totally not biased links.

I wouldn't even bother reading them, I'm well beyond reading Wikipedia articles or opinion pieces on the subject.

It's very difficult to get unbiased history and news of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is why you need to read a lot and develop your own perspective. Like I said, my professor at MSU was an Israeli Jew, but I was shocked at how neutral his lectures were. He didn't gloss over any of the ugly parts of history from either side, and mostly blamed the British Peel Commission's partition plan and the UN General Assembly's partition plan for the ongoing conflict.

He supported a two-state solution, as most Palestinians and Jews currently do. However their leadership may never agree to terms and boundaries that satisfy both sides. Decades of violence have resulted in radical leadership being elected on both sides that are only making the situation worse.

No one would call The National Journal a right wing publication - I would call it moderately left wing.

Obama’s Parting Shot Against His Party

At his year-end press con­fer­ence, Pres­id­ent Obama said he wanted to play a lead­ing role in re­build­ing the Demo­crat­ic Party. But in a sign of how Obama’s pro­gress­ive ideo­logy blinds him to polit­ic­al real­ity, his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fi­nal act be­fore the new year put his party in an even deep­er hole.

By de­clin­ing to veto a res­ol­u­tion con­demning Is­rael at the United Na­tions, Obama un­der­scored how out-of-step his views are from the rest of the coun­try—and on this is­sue, even with his own party. Al­low­ing the anti-Is­rael res­ol­u­tion to pass was widely con­demned, by both the in­com­ing Re­pub­lic­an ad­min­is­tra­tion and the most in­flu­en­tial Demo­crat in Con­gress, in­com­ing Sen­ate Minor­ity Lead­er Chuck Schu­mer. Jew­ish groups across the ideo­lo­gic­al spec­trum cri­ti­cized the de­cision in harsh terms, while even dovish Demo­crats such as Ohio’s Sher­rod Brown dis­tanced them­selves from the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ac­tion. Former DNC chair­wo­man Debbie Wasser­man Schultz, who sup­por­ted Obama’s con­tro­ver­sial Ir­an nuc­le­ar deal, called the U.N. res­ol­u­tion an “ir­re­spons­ible ac­tion [that] moves us fur­ther away from peace and hastens the like­li­hood that we lose the trust of our al­lies around the world.” She called the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ab­sten­tion “reck­less.”

Much more at the link.....

Why don't they just create two states?

steveschneider wrote:Why don't they just create two states?

Steve, why doesn't Izzo just win another national championship? The two state solution is, shall we say, a little bit controversial.

LooseGoose wrote:No one would call The National Journal a right wing publication - I would call it moderately left wing.

Obama’s Parting Shot Against His Party

At his year-end press con­fer­ence, Pres­id­ent Obama said he wanted to play a lead­ing role in re­build­ing the Demo­crat­ic Party. But in a sign of how Obama’s pro­gress­ive ideo­logy blinds him to polit­ic­al real­ity, his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fi­nal act be­fore the new year put his party in an even deep­er hole.

By de­clin­ing to veto a res­ol­u­tion con­demning Is­rael at the United Na­tions, Obama un­der­scored how out-of-step his views are from the rest of the coun­try—and on this is­sue, even with his own party. Al­low­ing the anti-Is­rael res­ol­u­tion to pass was widely con­demned, by both the in­com­ing Re­pub­lic­an ad­min­is­tra­tion and the most in­flu­en­tial Demo­crat in Con­gress, in­com­ing Sen­ate Minor­ity Lead­er Chuck Schu­mer. Jew­ish groups across the ideo­lo­gic­al spec­trum cri­ti­cized the de­cision in harsh terms, while even dovish Demo­crats such as Ohio’s Sher­rod Brown dis­tanced them­selves from the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ac­tion. Former DNC chair­wo­man Debbie Wasser­man Schultz, who sup­por­ted Obama’s con­tro­ver­sial Ir­an nuc­le­ar deal, called the U.N. res­ol­u­tion an “ir­re­spons­ible ac­tion [that] moves us fur­ther away from peace and hastens the like­li­hood that we lose the trust of our al­lies around the world.” She called the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ab­sten­tion “reck­less.”

Much more at the link.....

By Josh Kraushaar

Turtleneck wrote:

steveschneider wrote:Why don't they just create two states?

Steve, why doesn't Izzo just win another national championship? The two state solution is, shall we say, a little bit controversial.

Seems like it's just a continuation of a dysfunctional relationship that will only lead to more misery and suffering.

I don't think the situation over there will ever change until they figure out a way to achieve the two state solution.

steveschneider wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:

Steve, why doesn't Izzo just win another national championship? The two state solution is, shall we say, a little bit controversial.

Seems like it's just a continuation of a dysfunctional relationship that will only lead to more misery and suffering.

I don't think the situation over there will ever change until they figure out a way to achieve the two state solution.

Well, Trump just appointed an Ambassador that is fundamentally opposed to the two state solution.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/15/trump-israel-ambassador-david-friedman

Herbie the two state solution is a farce. The Arabs don't want Israel to exist. Israel has continually tried for peace and the other side won't even take meetings.

You have to realize Hamas gets and keeps power through violence and chaos. They don't want peace.

steveschneider wrote:

I don't think the situation over there will ever change until they figure out a way to achieve the two state solution.

Or one side eliminates the other.

The_Dude wrote:Herbie the two state solution is a farce. The Arabs don't want Israel to exist. Israel has continually tried for peace and the other side won't even take meetings.

You have to realize Hamas gets and keeps power through violence and chaos. They don't want peace.

Hamas only rules Gaza, while the Fatah/Palestinian Authority rule their portion of the West Bank. The PA and pretty much every Arab nation in the area have agreed to honor any mutually agreed upon two-state solution.

The problem is that neither side ever proposes any reasonable partition plan or two-state solution that doesn't completely favor their side. No real concessions or land swaps have been proposed or accepted by Israel, and Palestinians will never accept a two-state solution that does not return the city of Ariel and its land to them.

Ariel in particular is important to both sides, but is considered an Illegal Israeli settlement by the international community.

I thought the opening line of this from Thomas Friedman in the NYT is funny.

Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump

"For those of you confused over the latest fight between President Obama and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, let me make it simple".

If this whole thing was simple, wouldn't this have been solved in about 1974?

Floyd Robertson wrote:I thought the opening line of this from Thomas Friedman in the NYT is funny.

Bibi Netanyahu Makes Trump His Chump

"For those of you confused over the latest fight between President Obama and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, let me make it simple".

If this whole thing was simple, wouldn't this have been solved in about 1974?

He clearly is not trying to simplify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole, only the recent "fight" between Obama and Netanyahu...

Toss in Netanyho is going to be investigated for fraud and bribery at home. Its going to get more exciting.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/222473

Ok I readily admit I don’t understand this stuff.

Nor do I understand religion. So tell me - Isn't there a 2nd coming of christ that some believe requires the jews to be there for it. Do the Muslims have their own version

Herbie Green wrote:Ok I readily admit I don’t understand this stuff.

Nor do I understand religion. So tell me - Isn't there a 2nd coming of christ that some believe requires the jews to be there for it. Do the Muslims have their own version

Honestly Herbie, this conflict has a lot less to do with Religion than most people think.

Regarding your question, Jews believe that one of the prophetic indicators for the end of times/return of Yeshua is the return of Jews to Israel and Jerusalem to Jewish sovereignty.

xsanguine wrote:

steveschneider wrote:

I don't think the situation over there will ever change until they figure out a way to achieve the two state solution.

Or one side eliminates the other.

Israel is too humane to do that. They'll push forth into the settlements, and use the military aid to protect themselves from all of the surrounding threats.

Just don't get the hate for the only stable, pro Western ally we have in the ME.

The double standards people place on Israel because white academic liberals self loathe is unreal.

Also, TIL Venezuela and New Zealand have Middle East policies. Lol?

We give them over 3 billion a year in military aid alone. That's half of all the military aid we provide worldwide. That's not including the non military aid we give them. We're not allowed to have an opinion about how they treat the people that live there that aren't Jewish and were there prior to Israel even existing? Come on.

Rocinante wrote:We give them over 3 billion a year in military aid alone. That's half of all the military aid we provide worldwide. That's not including the non military aid we give them. We're not allowed to have an opinion about how they treat the people that live there that aren't Jewish and were there prior to Israel even existing? Come on.

It's not that simple though.

Do you know and understand your WW1 and WW2 history?

And give me a break. You don't give a single fuck about Palestinians.

I just find it funny with all the government sponsored atrocities in the world the nutjob partisans that now represent the UN go after the only non fucked country in the ME.