Thursday, June 03, 2010
Don't care much anymore:Leon Wieseltier (yes him) writes in The New Republic: It is hard not to conclude from this Israeli action, and also from other Israeli actions in recent years, that the Israeli leadership simply does not care any longer about what anybody thinks. It does not seem to care about what even the United States—its only real friend, even in the choppy era of Obama—thinks. And I suspect the feeling is reciprocal. In a similar vein, when Israel doesn't care about objections to expanded settlements in the West Bank - which is a big stumbling block to any peaceful accord - why care back?
posted by Quiddity at 6/03/2010 02:06:00 PM
9 comments
duh
> It does not seem to care about what even the United States —
> its only real friend, even in the choppy era of Obama—thinks.
That's just the point -- Obama has worked long and hard to make the point that under his administration, Israel is NOT a friend of the United States.
Bush was able to keep the mideast from exploding by convincing Israel over and over not to retaliate, because the United States absolutely had its back, and by convincing its enemies not to attack by giving out the consistent message that an attack on Israel would bring full retaliation by the United States.
Obama has gone out of his way to insult and isolate Israel, and make overtures towards its enemies. He's been able to flip Turkey from being a reluctant ally of the United States and sitting unhappily on the sidelines with regards to Israel into a country that is contemptuous of the United States and ready to openly wage war on Israel.
The "peace process" was always phony. It was just a mouth full of lies designed for the purpose of buying another day. Obama doesn't realize it, but by burning the fake "peace process" to the ground he is setting the stage for all-out middle-east nuclear war, which, at the rate things are going, should happen before the end of his term.
"Bush was able to keep the mideast from exploding by convincing Israel over and over not to retaliate"
Really?
So, the Israelis didn't launch an attach against Hezbollah in a then fragile Lebanon that had just emerged from civil war? A disastrous campaign that managed to strengthen Hezbollah.
And, the Israelis didn't launch a near genocidal campaign against the Gaza ghetto? That also didn't not achieve its goals but left Hamas in strengthened position.
Great convincing on Bush's part.
"Obama has gone out of his way to insult and isolate Israel..."
LOL!
Good spoof...
So telling Israel to you know, maybe back-off on the west bank expansion makes the current Admin working long and hard to be not friendly to Israel. This even though we are still paying Israel over $3 BILLION annually in taxpayer debt. Just maybe once these folks could just try chilling out for their billions instead of constantly stirring shit up. Yes, of course I am an officially certified Jew hater.
Barack Obama has no business telling the Israelis what to build in their own country.
There is no "Palestine." There has never been one. There will never be one. It is a fiction with one purpose only -- to justify the continued genocidal war against Israel by its neighbors.
Anonymous blithered madly, "Barack Obama has no business telling the Israelis what to build..."
Of course the US can't tell Israel what to do. We _can_, however, cut off funding for Israel unless they do as we say. If they don't want to do as we say, they don't have to take our money.
"... in their own country."
Uh, the West Bank is not part of Israel.
"There is no 'Palestine.' There has never been one. There will never be one. It is a fiction with one purpose only -- to justify the continued genocidal war against Israel by its neighbors."
Right now, the closest thing to genocidalists are the Israelis, who are conducting go-slow ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Right now, the closest thing to genocidalists are the Israelis, who are conducting go-slow ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Wow! Israel must be the most incompetent ethnic cleansers in the entire history of the world! All that effort and expense, and the only Palestinians they can manage to kill are the ones shooting rockets at them, beating them with clubs and knives, and a few of those cute little human shields that always seem to surround Palestinian Peace Activists, like the firm crust on a day-old turd. It's not as if the peace-loving Palestinian "activists" aren't busy as bees trying to make the world a better place, as they might put it, one Jew at a time!
Consider the Russians. While the "civilized" world was wringing their panties because there was no way in the world to address the unprecedented threat of nautical piracy, the Russians apparently didn't get the memo. A bunch of pirates took over a Russian ship. The Russian navy stormed the ship, captured the pirates, and executed them right there on the ship with bullets to the back of the head.
Think of it as tough love. Sure, it cost a few members of the Pirate Community, but look at the wonderful, instructive message it sent! Strangely enough, the Russians aren't having as much trouble with piracy these days.
Imagine if the Israelis did something like that! The entire world would be screaming Murder! Genocide! Terrorist! Just like it does each and every time Israel lifts a single little finger to defend itself.
I call bullshit on your propaganda. You ask the wrong question. The real question is --
If the world treats overly cautious, meticulously legal and, proper defensive military conduct by Israel as if it were war crimes, why should Israel even bother. What if Israel had, the moment their boarding party was attacked, simply opened fire on the ship with all their weaponry, killed every person on board, and sank the ship. Once attacked by a blockade runner, they had had every right to do so under international law. Kind of like the Ruskies double-tapping the pirates.
What would the world do? Condemn Israel? Yes, but so what. They condemned them anyway.
Isolating and threatening Israel was a bit of a parlor game when the United States was standing at its side. Israel doesn't feel that way anymore, and I don't think liberals comprehend how much more dangerous Obama has made the game by distancing the United States from Israel. Keep up this dated Jew-bashing propaganda and I suspect we'll all find out.
Regarding the previous comment, here's an interview with Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. Oren delivers a warning to liberals from Israel:
However, if Israel’s adversaries believe that they can put Israel on the defensive by shaming it in the court of public opinion through the use of human shields, Oren says, they may have miscalculated. For if the Jewish state is condemned when it plays by the normal rules of warfare that apply to the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, then maybe Israel will stop trying to figure out how to satisfy the capricious dictates of the international community and act to defend itself and defeat its enemies.
“Our critics don’t get it,” Oren said. “In Jenin, we went house-to-house and sent 23 soldiers to their death. But if we’re going to be called war criminals no matter what we do, then maybe that changes our thinking.”
|
