Ellison, McCollum and Oberstar urge Obama to lift Gaza blockade

Why is our government giving Israel billions of dollars a year? Israel is intentionally starving women and children in Gaza.

[...] This is unprecedented. [...]

people in gaza need help for humanitarian needs. everyone deserves this much.

I have one only thing to say:
Every population of every country deserve the government they have. Either they tolerating it or electing it.
Well it the Gaza case they elected it and they are tolerating it. ago
How much help Haiti would expect from us if they would shoot 4,000 rockets to the State of Israel.

Israel is doing to Gaza what we should of done long time ago to Iran.

We should be happy that someone is doing a successful war on terror, not like we are in Afghanistan.

Lift blockade? Only after they accept Israel as a neighbor.

Shame to these shortsighted congressmen. Their hearts bleeds for the terrorists.

Gary Malamud.

It certainly is unprecedented. This appeasement, pathetically dressed up as a humanitarian appeal, of islamofascist terrorism is appalling. Still, hardly a surprise given who is in the White House.

America should do all it can to support Israel, rather than try to undermine it. It wasn’t Israel that flew planes into the Twin Towers, or blew up the London subway, or blew up the Madrid train station, or blew up a Bali nightclub, or hundreds of other places worldwide too numerous to mention. It’s the friends and co-religionists of Israel’s murderous neighbours that did all that – and try every day to do similarly.

Israel is on the front line against ismalist terror. Their enemies should be our enemies. Wake up people!

To Gary (and Phil):

What Israel is doing breaks international law in that it collectively punishes civilians for the work that their government is doing. While Hamas is an issue, how are they supposed to function when Israel kidnapped the more moderate members of their government after the election? How is Hamas supposed to not be resentful when since they first took power, Israel has stopped food and aid from entering, destroyed the economy, and routinely targeted civilians and infrastructure. Why bomb a power plant? Why drop a bomb on an apartment building (if it is reported to have a terrorist) only to kill innocents? Israel has made the decision that Gazan lives don’t matter, so while Hamas may need reformation, it is unethical to extend punishment to the population as a whole.

[Another irony is that Israel, which helped craft the Geneva Conventions, has gone on to break a substantial amount of them. ]

Is this the war on terror? Pay off totalitarian governments and punish unfriendly democratic ones? Kill hundreds of innocent Palestinians? Allow Israel to choke Gaza and then not take any responsibility? Censure a report that documents war crimes on both sides of the Gaza war, because it indicts an ally (who uses US arms to illegally attack civilians)?

It is a mistake to group all of certain peoples into the label “terrorist” without addressing the real issues, which are, as Moshe Dayan would say in 1956, “For eight years now [and we are past 60 presently] they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes we have turned their and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home.”

There has always been a delusional mindset, in Israel, that believes it is superior not only to any Arabic nation but also to any Western nation. The reason for this is beyond ordinary comprehension but in the early days of the fifties and sixties, the excuse invariably given by Jewish communities in the Diaspora was two-fold. It was, they said, not only compensating behaviour for the understandably low self-esteem of refugees but also because the immigrants had been inordinately successful in making ‘the desert bloom’. At the time, to non-Israeli, European Jews, that seemed a reasonable explanation.

In the years that followed, those excuses died. It has become increasingly clear from an in-depth examination of the available historiography, that from 1948 onwards, successive Israeli administrations have not hesitated to use ruthless methods to quash opposition from any source that they perceived as being a threat- existential or otherwise. Arab villages were razed. Indigenous civilians whose families had been endemic in Palestine for over a thousand years were liquidated, including many women and children. Virtually anyone, not of the faith, was considered inferior and therefore expendable. And that practice pertains today, only with greater intensity and frequency. Lebanon and Gaza being just two examples in neighboring territories, but Israel’s contempt of and for international bodies, conventions and institutions, indicates an arrogance that is not only delusional but borders now upon a dangerous mental imbalance that has become an international problem. That is: how to continue to support an independent state established by the UN as a Jewish National Home in response to the needs of the post-war remnant of a persecuted people after the Holocaust in Europe – that has today become a huge, secret nuclear power, supported by a lobby-driven American government, that is determined to ignore international demands for a return to pre 1967 borders, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

There is little doubt that this era in which America has given Israel carte blanche to act in any way it sees fit, will be seen in retrospect as one of the strangest periods of US history whereby responsibility for foreign policy in the Middle East was abdicated, over four decades, by successive US administrations – without any apparent dissent from the majority of the electorate – to a fundamentalist lobby group representing just a tiny fraction of American public opinion.

If you want to call all muslims and arabs terrorists, that fine phil. Though I assure you more muslims and arabs have died at the hands of amerincans and american made weapons than amerincans or israels for that matter have been killed by muslims. Last time I checked there are no Arab military bases on American soil.

But if you insist on calling us all terroists, please realize we come in different flavors. Americans and French are all part of the Christian western world, but they do have cultural differences. Iranians are not Arabs and nor are Indonesians. And Arabs from Lebanon are a lot different than Arabs in Saudi Arabia.

Being a proud citizen of this country I am happy to see we are going in the right direction, and the opinions of people like Phil are going to the dust bin. Sorry buddy, you are going to have to find a new bad guy for the next decade – because Islam is not it.

Oh and nice quote “another Jewish voice” here are a few more.

“We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
– David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

“There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
– Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

No, the people of Gaza do not require help. They are Arabs and Muslims who freely elected an Arab and Muslim terrorist group called Hamas to rule them. They have adequate food, clothing, medical care- mainly from Israel- and schools, albeit the schools are Islamic and for males only. Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel which is a war crime and Israel is under no obligation to lift a blockade of war criminals- it is for the purpose of preventing weapons smuggling. The people of Iran needed help far more and they received none from the U.S.; why should the foolish people of Gaza?

Treason de jour

To Another Jewish Voice

The concept of international law is meaningless. If it had any meaning at all the Soviet Union and Communist Chinese would have been in court every day. They really knew how to enslave, slaughter and starve. They would have been joined by a whole host of African and Arab leaders who have done likewise. The charge of breaking international law is just there to be thrown at Western governments, and in particular Israel. In other words “international law” is highly selective – and an elaborate exercise in double standards.

So Hamas, an organisation that has spent much of its time training suicide bombers and firing rockets indiscriminately at Jews they dearly want to slaughter wholesale, is an “issue”. It’s nice of you to concede that. They won the election in Gaza and promptly celebrated by throwing large numbers of their political opponents off rooftops. Others were lucky to only receive bullets in their knees and be crippled for life. Seems like they don’t go in for the traditional balloons and streamers. Just a cultural difference I’m sure. Hamas needs reformation you say. Yeah, in much the same way the Nazi party needed reformation.

Israel’s soldiers have always done more than any other army in the world to avoid civilian casualties on the enemy side – to the extent of putting their own lives at risk, and sometimes getting killed as a result. Civilian casualties can’t always be avoided, especially when the enemy fires their weapons from homes and schools and resupplies their fighters using ambulances. On the other hand , Israel’s enemies (whether they be Hamas or the supposedly moderate Fatah) delight in slaughtering civilians, whether it be by mortars and rockets or by sending suicide bombers to blow up a bus, shopping mall, cafe or pizza parlour. When news of a successful suicide bombing comes through, car horns are honked whilst candy and other treats are given out. A party atmosphere prevails – in the same way as they celebrated the slaughter at the World Trade Center in the West Bank and Gaza.

Despite all this, Israel has been regularly supplying food, fuel and other items to Gaza (sometimes while enemy fighters rocket the border crossing points!). Nobody is starving there. In any case, I assume you know that Egypt has a border with Gaza. There’s nothing to stop Egypt from supplying their “desperate” brethren. Surely, they would want to help Gaza if it was in trouble.

Anyway, if you want to see genuine brutality take a look at what the Russians did in Chechnya. About 100,000 people (close to 10% of the population) got bumped off by the Russians and Grozny, the capital, was largely flattened. Anyone seen Russia in court lately?

“Israel’s soldiers have always done more than any other army in the world to avoid civilian casualties on the enemy side..”

IN FACT:

The IDF killed 320 children in Gaza, in January 2009, according to substantiated evidence, on the pretext of ’self-defense’. If proven, that is a war crime.

According to the Goldstone Report, commissioned by the UN, the IDF used Palestinian civilians as human shields. If proven that is a war crime.

The IDF also, according to the report, used phosphorus as a chemical weapon against the civilian population. If proven, that is a war crime.

The Israeli state has attempted to discredit the UN Goldstone report, but has been unsuccessful. It will be debated this month.

Perhaps my geography is not that good, but doesn’t Gaza have two borders, one with Israel and the other with Egypt? Seems to me that a blockade by one nation is impossible if there are two sovereign nations on either side. But I guess it is ok if another Arab nation blocks the terrorist movement but not a democratic one which happens to be Jewish. People need to see this for what it really is, which is Israel bashing.

Let’s not kid anybody here. The first and only thing Hamas will import are weapons to use against Israel. If they had any concern for their population they would not have turned Gaza into a military base for use in the destruction of Israel. Why would any sane person give the person who has openly said they want you dead the opportunity to get the means to carry out the threat.

Most of the pro-Hamas stuff posted here is recycled propoganda. Like killing children: are 15 or 16 year olds carrying AK47s children or enemy combatant?

Gazans elected a murderous and genocidal government and it has/will cost them dearly.

Phil, your argument and non-history is so delusional, that I really can’t comment. Your argument is basically that since so and so got away with murder, I should have the right to also. Ethically dubious and morally false.

I suggest you read up on the following things:
1. Israel’s illegal mass kidnapping of Hamas’s elected officials after the election.
2. The status of food and supplies going into Gaza from Israel. Much much much lower than you say.
3. The Egyptian border: currently a wall is being built to further constrict Gazans with US tax payer and Israeli money.
4. The use of white phosphorous in Gaza on civilians by the Israeli military. Also, the illegal use of bomblets in Lebanon. Also, the illegal use of tear gas canisters indoors on unarmed Palestinians. Oh and Israeli army’s illegal use of human shields. Most “moral” army in the world, right?
4a. Also, check out how many Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military during ceasefires.
5. Home demolitions.
6. The toll on UN buildings and services in the Gaza war and the lack of evidence that these were places where Hamas fired from. The toll on civilian infrastructure. The toll on children. The toll on mental health (Israeli jets try to break the sound barrier as they fly overhead at night, to keep the population awake, during cease-fires). The human toll, which you seem ok with.

Mike: No one right now is happy with Eygpt either, though they are not shelling innocent civilians.

Right now the top two recipients of US aid are Israel ($3-4 billion) and Egypt ($1.75 billion). Both are constricting Gaza. Israel has 5 crossings, I believe and Egypt has one.

Also, is it Israel bashing if you are just pointing out the truth? If so, I guess any acknowledgment of fact is seen as bashing someone.

Now we have identified the real supporters of terrorism in the United States House of Representatives.

Donations for their November defeat will cascade in. Say goodbye to any chance of re-election in November Mr. Ellison and your 54 supporters of terrorism.

“The toll on mental health (Israeli jets try to break the sound barrier as they fly overhead at night, to keep the population awake, during cease-fires).”
-What a joke, how about random rockets being shot at you?? Obviously an American Jew.

Humanitarian aid to Gaza increased by close to 900% in 2009 compared to the previous year. Thousands of trucks carrying tons of humanitarian and material aid have been allowed by Israel into Gaza. In 2009 the IDF issued over 18,500 permits for Palestinians to leave Gaza and enter Israel or travel overseas.

A look at the difference between what is shown on the Arabic-language website PalToday and its English counterpart makes one wonder if they are talking about the same Gaza. The Arabic-language site shows the residents enjoying a life of plenty; the English-language reports only tales of misery.

What must not be forgotten is that the ruling power in Gaza, Hamas, has deluged Israel with rockets and mortars for years. Gazans have attacked border crossings where aid is transferred. The ruling power in Gaza is also committed to the extermination of Israel.

When Israel finally decided to put a stop to the rockets, the whole world condemned Israel, while her efforts to ease the discomfort of Gazans goes unmentioned.

Furthermore, Gaza shares a border with Egypt. Why is congress ignoring this relationship?

Anne: “Furthermore, Gaza shares a border with Egypt. Why is congress ignoring this relationship?”

Congress votes nearly $2 billion per annum to Egypt specifically in order that they keep the Rafah border crossing with Gaza closed and and that 1.5m Palestinians are kept restricted in a ghetto with just sufficient food and supplies to maintain life.

What is it about this patently inhuman arrangement that you fail to understand?

I noticed that the congressmen listed a number of actins necessary to help Gaza. While sympathizing with the people of Southern Israel, they made no suggestions to Hamas on how they might change their behavior or to Israel on what would constitute a legitmate defense. If they don’t say what they would support as a defense,they are condoning the attacks by leaving Israel without the ability to defend itself.

I think the answer provided by the Israeli Embassy (see at the end of this comment) is rather self explanatory. For the readers that are so quick to blame and curse Israel, its population, and its government in its positions, I invite you to reflect on what you would do and what you would want your government to do if you (personally) were confronted with a situation similar to that in which Israel is in for the past ten and more years. If the almost unanimous US, its people, and elected officials reaction to the atrocious Sept 11 terrorist attack is any indication, Gaza would have been long eliminated. As terrible as the perception of the situation of Gaza and its inhabitants is today, why aren’t their elected officials engaged in a direct, unconditional, and respectful of past agreements negotiations to advance the well being of its people? My humble opinion is that these representatives are more interested in their destructive, blood thirsty, and desperate, although rather misplaced, need to survive than to take care of their people. Shame on them. An old friend of mine suggested the following a while back: If Israel stops defending itself, she will for sure be annihilated by its enemies. If the Palestinians were to stop shooting and engaging in terrorism acts, they might achieve their dreams. Now let me ask you: Who really holds the cards to peace and prosperity for all people in the region?

The Israeli Embassy in Washington responded to the letter: “The Hamas government in Gaza does not meet the conditions set forth by the international community and the Quartet. As long as Hamas continues to attack Israel with missiles and other means, Israel will not open the border crossings. With this, Israel is doing everything possible to ensure that humanitarian aid enters Gaza in a controlled manner so that it is ensured that the population receives what it needs, including medical care in Israel. But Israel will not allow a neighbor that calls for its destruction to enjoy the benefits of an open border.”

[...] Letter and list is HERE [...]

The Israeli Embassy is indulging in double-speak. The rocket attacks had already ceased for many months but ISRAEL still REFUSED TO OPEN THE RAFAH CROSSING because in reality they have no intention of releasing their grip on 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza.

The extreme right-wing Israeli government of Netanyahu and his appalling foreign minister, have a firm but unwritten agenda for a Greater Israel that includes ALL OF EAST JERUSALEM and ALL OF THE WEST BANK.

It is extraordinary that many in the US are still accepting patent propaganda to the contrary, notwithstanding the obvious evidence on the ground.

[...] 28, 2010 Ellison, McCollum and Oberstar urge Obama to life Gaza blockade by Andy Birkey  -  The Minnesota Independent -  26 January [...]

Yes, we keep hearing Israel is some kind of Satanic state. I thought so too. But then I noticed (not very well reported) that they immediately sent over teams of doctors to help out the victims in Haiti.

And it got me thinking. Why do they help Haitians and impose sanctions on Gaza? And it got me thinking even more – perhaps it has less to do with the “evil” of Israel and is more a reaction to how the Gazans have been behaving (in contrast to the innocuous people of Haiti)?

Just some questions I’ve been mulling around lately.

To follow up APS, NOT ONE team of aid workers was sent to Haiti by the Arab League, composing of ONLY 22 mostly oil-wealthy nations. NOT ONE. Israel, a little under 7 million and its own basket of problems, gets boots on the ground pretty damm quick. Some ’satan’, huh?

It’s a shame that Another (naive) Jewish Voice doesn’t bleed and feel pangs of injustice and despair for people like David Hatuel, who lost his pregnant wife and four kids in an up close and personal ambush a few years ago. Whole family wiped out. Their crime? Driving while Zionist. Of course, immediate execution, like Hamas tossing political opponents of roofs of buildings,is the modus operandi for Islamic terrorists whose documented charter calls for the extermination of Jews. Not just ‘land liberation’ or ‘two states for two peoples’. Hah! Another Jewish Voice is living in Another World.

All of East Jerusalem and all of the west bank of the Jordan River were lost by Jordan was a result of their attacking Israel and being defeated. Prior to the First World War, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the province of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine which included modern day Jordan and Israel. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War saw the establishment of Israel in parts of the former Mandate, while the territory known as the “West Bank” area was captured by Trans-Jordan. Since it then controlled the territory on both sides of the Jordan river, Trans-Jordan renamed itself Jordan in 1949. The 1949 Armistice Agreements defined its interim boundary. From 1948 until 1967, the area was under Jordanian rule, and Jordan did not officially relinquish its claim to the area until 1988. Jordan’s claim was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. The West Bank was taken control of by Israel, during the Six-Day War in June, 1967. Nowhere was it ever mandated that the West Bank was to be an individual state. Israel was mandated to be and is Jewish Palestine. Jordan was mandated and is Arab Palestine. Jordan allowed the West bank to become a poor seething refugee camp for Arabs who left or were thrown out of Jewish Palestine. Then, after losing control of it through the loss of a war, they relinquished their claim to the land. I believe that Israel should have officially annexed the land and shipped off any unhappy Arabs to Jordan (the Arab Palestinian state then and now) but that’s just me and I’m just saying, there is an existing Palestinian called Jordan and Arabs who don’t like living in Eretz Yisrael should be permitted to move there. Meanwhile, let constucion of settlements resume!

To all those who yell “What about Egypt?”, you need to think a bit more deeply about this.

Under international law Israel is still the occupying power, and that gives it complete AUTHORITY over all of the borders of Gaza, including the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Egypt recognizes that Israel is still the occupying power i.e. it recognizes that Israel has the AUTHORITY to order that the Rafah crossing be closed.

So if Israel orders that the Rafah crossing be closed (and it does) then Egypt really has only two choices:
1) Close the damn border
2) Challenge the authority of Israel.

Option (2) is a nonstarter, because Egypt has no interest in going to war with Israel over the fate of the Gaza Strip.

A comparison might help: the border between Iraq and Syria is wide open, since the US Army has nowhere near enough G.I.’s to seal it.

Does that mean that Damascus has the “right” to decide who – or what – enters Iraq from that border?

I think you will find that the answer from Raymond Odierno will be “No”, and it will be “No” because that authority resides with him, and not with Bashar Assad.

@ Sifter, its a known fact that Israel is in Haiti to harvest more organs from the Haitians. http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/01/26/focus-on-israel-harvesting-haitian-organ

Mort
Comment posted January 27, 2010 @ 5:40 pm

True, and let us not forget that Jordan itself was formed of much of the land area intended by the Mandate for the creation of a Jewish state but thanks to the perfidy of Britain the size of the Jewish state was drastically reduced, and to this day Israel is accused of occupying the land intended for it.

S. Wolf made the following false statement: “True, and let us not forget that Jordan itself was formed of much of the land area intended by the Mandate for the creation of a Jewish state but thanks to the perfidy of Britain the size of the Jewish state was drastically reduced,”

Wolf, grab a hold of your copy of the Mandate for Palestine. Make sure you have the English language version, not the Hebrew version.

Run your finger down the text and stop at Article 25.

Now, be a good chappie and tell everyone what Article 25 of the Mandate has to say.

Because I *believe* it says that you are talking a big ol’ pile of Cow Dung.

And why, Johnboy, should S.Wolf make sure that he has the English language version, not the Hebrew version. Call me paranoid, but, as a self-loving Jew, I find that offensive.

Hey Sifter, how do we deal with this lunacy?

“its a known fact that Israel is in Haiti to harvest more organs from the Haitians.”

So, the Israelis a skulking out under cover of darkness with “harvested Haitian organs” Is John Travolta and the Scientologists (sounds like a doowop group) flying them out?
Can one be laughing hysterically and appalled at the same time? Give me a f–king break!

Mort asks: “And why, Johnboy, should S.Wolf make sure that he has the English language version, not the Hebrew version. Call me paranoid, but, as a self-loving Jew, I find that offensive.”

Because anyone who can read plain english can plainly see that his claim is a pile of manure, Mort.

So unless Wolf wants to admit that he has English reading comprehension problems then there must be some other explanation, and the most likely is that he gains his “knowledge” 2nd-hand.

You know, from all that “hasbarah”….

So, yeah, if you want to make a big song ‘n’ dance about it then I am willing to concede your point, and I will change the phrase “the Hebrew version” to “the Hasbarah comic-book version”.

Happy now?

MORT – thanks for the history lesson. According to international law – that is the accepted conventions agreed and subscribed to by the majority of the nations of the world and by the UN – Jerusalem is an international city not an Israeli one and the West Bank is Palestinian land.

Hasbara stuff from the Israeli Foreign Ministry on this or other sites will not alter the facts. Israeli settlement on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem is UNLAWFUL and must cease and all so-called ’settlers’ must return to their own country.

There cannot and will not be any amendment to international law merely because an extreme right-wing Likud government demands it.

Actually, Likud government does not demand it due to a shortages of cohones(sic).There is no international law that is or will be enforced(Chechnea,etc). Will the very nations that agreed to the creation of Israel and whatever they did to the Arabs at the time (I’m not suggesting that they were not manhandled and screwed by the nations who voted to create Israel)reverse history, eliminate Jordan and revert the territory bsck to the Palestinian mandate (includes part of Syria as well)? I think not. You began with “thanks for the history lesson” and this is, in fact, history, not hasbara. Look it up. I say Israel stays put. They have annexed E.Jerusalem so it is no longer an international city. Who’s going to do anything about it? Let the excepted conventionals call me pischa if they like. When you attack and attempt to obliterate a nation and fail, there are consequences which can be open ended. The international law has been amended defacto. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Zaid – the first half of your message was good, but the second part was never said by Ben-Gurion. He said “We do not wish, we do not need to expel the Arabs and take their place.” This doesn’t seem to have the same meaning as what you said.

COLINDALE, can you please tell me of other wars in which children have NOT been killed? Do you consider Obama and Bush to be war criminals for the Afghanistan war (5000+ innocent civilians have been killed…)? That doesn’t mean that the IDF is a particularly moral army, but I still haven’t seen any example of an army which is more moral, e.g. an army which actually warns people about where it will attack, or which provides humanitarian aid to a region which is attacking it (yes it’s mostly providing aid to people who aren’t actively attacking it, which maybe doesn’t sound as selfless, but does any other army in the world doing even that?).

As for organ harvesting, you know that back in the old days in Europe, Christians thought that Jews kidnapped Christian children and made Matzah out of their blood. Can you explain to me why I should believe this any more than that?

By the way, Gershon Baskin makes a good argument why he thinks the Gaza War hurt Israel: http://gershonbaskinenglish.gershonbaskin.org/issues/encountering-peace-change-in-gaza-is-possible/

To US Reps and Citizens

I wonder how you would react should your towns and cities be shelled and fired on with high explosive rockets on a daily basis from Mexico?

How would you react if all the international aid the Mexicans received was used to purchase arms from Iran instead of building hospitals, infrastructure, schools and clinics for their people?

How would you react if the steel and concrete that you purchase with the aid money was used to build concrete tunnels to smuggle arms and explosives intended to be fired on USA?

What would you do if some of these tunnels were built under the US – Mexican border and used to kidnap US citizens or smuggle arms and drugs?

Finally, there is no blockade on Gaza. Hundreds of trucks are transferring daily food, medical supplies and humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip from Israel albeit the fact that Hamas has declared openly the destruction of the State of Israel and its people and they are firing on these convoys of humanitarian aid.

And finally, if you are so worried about the people in Gaza, why don’t you ask Egypt to open their border for the people in Gaza. They are not in war with Egypt and they do not fire high explosive rockets on Egyptian towns and cities and they do not send homicide bombers to murder innocent civilians over there.

God, those who keep rewinding the oh-so-old nonsense about Israel’s “the world’s most humane and compassionate soldiers” and Israel being the victim and Israel wanting desperately to help Gaza but stupid Palestinians refusing and one critique of Israel bringing Holocaust images to mind and Israel being a land with no people for the people with no land and so on and so forth (an many more so forths), please realize that those pathetically pathetic arguments have been refuted time nd again and again and many agains to come. In fact, it is turning against you, stop pissing people off with your whining for Moma’s sake!

It will be Arabs and Muslims themselves who will have to deal Israel dilemma in the end. No one else gives a piece of kosher/halal falafel (another myth about Israel, by the way )

Might makes right, heh, Mort?

Mort: “There is no international law that is or will be enforced”

Laws exist, Mort, and wether there will – or won’t – be “law enforcement” is an act of presumption on your part.

Mort: “Will the very nations that agreed to the creation of Israel ” .. [irrelevent stuff clipped]… “eliminate Jordan and revert the territory bsck to the Palestinian mandate (includes part of Syria as well)?”

Where. To. Begin. With. That. Nonsense?

In no particular order….
Territory east of the Jordan River was ALWAYS going to be excluded from the provisions of the Balfour Declaration; it said so in the Mandate itself.

Transjordan became an independent sovereign state BEFORE the UNGA approved the Partition Plan that would eventually ensure the creation of Israel.

Syria was ALWAYS included within its own Mandate, and both the Mandate for Syria and the Mandate for Palestine did not come into effect **until** the borders between the two Mandates was agreed upon **by** the two Mandatories.

It said so in the very first paragraph of the Mandate for Palestine.

Man, where do you guys get your “knowledge” from?
Not from the source documents, that’s for sure….

Obviously the commentors on this site are not bothered by the 55 supporters of terrorism in our own House of Representatives. First things first. Look at Keith Ellison and the enemies within.

It feels good to contribute to Ellison and Rep. Jim McDermott, for the first time in a long time. It is clear that right wing Americans are responsible for what we have done to the people of Palestine. I hope we arm them to the teeth so they can defend themselves against the Israeli genocide. It is clear, Israel has a calculated and coercive support system in the states, on every blog game in town, that has intimidated peace loving people into accepting the butchery that has been going on to children and helpless people behind the barbed wire. I am sick that so many did not sign this.

How about a little concern for the Israeli’s that have been under almost constant attack by missles for years? Would the U.S. stand still if Canada started to lob thousands of missles into our country?

Nothing Johnboy cited is in fact mentioned in the first paragraph of the Mandate for Palestine and I could find no verification for the following statement “Territory east of the Jordan River was ALWAYS going to be excluded from the provisions of the Balfour Declaration; it said so in the Mandate itself.”(Balfour was 1917; Mandate was 1922)
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp
I’ve been rereading Balfour, Mandates, League of Nations, UN, etc. all morning and none of them agree with each other on the disposition of the land referred to as The West Bank.
In fact, there are contradictions across the board created by cowardly “statesmen” who have left millions of people swinging in the breeze. Interpret as you will. No provision has been made for lands captured and occupied as spoils of war. Would you like to work with me on a proposal for the USA to return the states, lands, islands, protectorates that we occupy as a result of the spoils of war. The simple fact, how ever disagreeable it may be, is that might does make right and possession is often “nine tenths of the law.”
To paraphrase Sluchah, the Arabs will have to deal with the Israelis and The Muslims with the Jews.

Dear Defenders of Israel, You all miss the point, I think, intentionally. The problem is the illegal occupation of Arab land, by Israel. That is what causes the rockets from Gaza. True peace means removing the IDF from the West Bank. Israel trys to obscure the issue because they are the cause of the problem. Israel could have peace tomorrow if they withdrew to the 1967 borders. Anything less is land theft, plane and simple. Poor, little Israel has the 5th most powerful army in the world and is using it to bully an unarmed population. The only thing Israel learned from the Holocaust is technique. They shame the Jewish People.

I repeat: If, in the process of fending off attack, you vanquish the enemy using the 5th most powerful army in the world and occupy their land, why is this occupation illegal? After their defeat, Jordan relinquished any claim to the land. So, to whom does the land belong? I say to the occupier. If the 4 more powerful armies want to toss out Israel, let them do it.

By the way, Mr. Barry III, what should Israel have learned from the Holocaust?

Explaining things to Mort….

That territory east of the Jordan was exempt from the Balfour Declaration:
Art 25: “In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions,”…

That Transjordan could be (and certainly WAS) created as a state before the the rest of the Mandate:
Art 25 (cont): “and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions,”…

That the border between the Syria Mandate and the Palestine Mandate had to be defined BY the Mandatories themselves BEFORE the Mandates came into effect:
Preamble: “to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; ”

As. May. Be. Fixed. By. Them.

Can’t you read English, Mort?

Mort asks: “I repeat: If, in the process of fending off attack, you vanquish the enemy using the 5th most powerful army in the world and occupy their land, why is this occupation illegal?”

It depends upon why you won’t **END** the occupation, Mort.

You can occupy territory for one reason only: necessary self-defense against aggression.

Once the question of a war of aggression against you becomes a dead-letter then the occupying power must start working towards ending the occupation because, obviously, the rationale **for** that occupation no longer exists.

But if an occupying power refuses to end the occupation BECAUSE it insists upon a territorial concession from the occupied then the occupation starts to slide into illegality.

Why?

Because the occupation is no longer being maintained for reasons of “self-defense”, but for reasons of “territorial self-aggrandisement”.

And that **is** illegal.

People in Gaza need nothing but being human! You can’t be at war with Mexico and let the Mexican ammunition and food!!!! First Mexico should stop all her violence against the US and then cry for her to help. Sure Mexico is not an enemy to the US, but you still blockade your border to defend yourselves from intruders. If you allow yourself to do it in front of your good neighbor, why Israel can’t do it against their deadly enemy that is striving to her death?

Although the legal and moral stands for Israel in that case, Israel lets the food, medicine, electricity and raw materials to flow into Gaza. More than that, Israel let bad-ill Gazans to attend Israeli hospitals, even when the Hamas keeps firing rockets at them!

The question of the WB is not yet closed. The WB was conquered by the Jordanians in 1948 against UN resolutions. At that time there wasn’t yet any “Palestinian” people but the Jews. The Arabs in the WB were Jordanians, voted and elected to the Amman’s Parliament. More than that, more than 75% of the Jordanians are what you call “Palestinians” and the others are mostly Bedouins. Israel occupied the occupied WB in 1967, after Jordan open the war against her. Then Israel conquered the no-man land from Jordan.
The Americans conquered lands of the British, French, Spanish and Mexico, lands that wasn’t link to white Americans history. Israel conquered her historical assets that were illegally conquered and held by Jordan. I don’t see your Anti Israel claims as vivid and true. Israel has all the rights to hold her occupied territories because it is legal and all other options are just fake.

Keith Ellison the first Muslim in congress.
Have a nice future my fellow Americans.

COLINDALE, Jewrusalem is not international city any more but the Capitol of Israel. if you recognize or not. Practicaly in was planed to be international in the UN separation plan and in resolution 194. B U T the Arabs didn’t accept non of these and started a war. By that action they abolished all resolutions and changed the frame of the political areana.

The only solution left is cuting Palestine into two.
The only solution for the Palestinian conflict is
A two national states solution – one state is Arab and the other is Jewish. No third or fourth state what so ever! The Arab state will dwell from the Jordan river and eastern towards the Arabian desert, and the Jewish state from the river westward to the sea shore. No transferring of people for any reason (but terrorists). Arabs in Israel will be the new Palestinian state and will vote to the Amman’s parliament, and Jews in Palestinian Jordan (if will be any) will vote for the Knesset in Jerusalem. Every human being will go on with his personal life and will have the freedom to express himself as he wish according the law.
See no reason and no logic to create a second (WB) or third (Gaza) Arab states !

Gaza is flourishing !!!!!

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/08cAfz79VUa7Y/610x.jpg

Palestinians look at shoes in the front window of a shop in the West Bank city of Hebron August 25, 2009. The economy of the West Bank and Gaza is forecast by the World Bank to grow by 5 percent this year, 6.5 percent in 2010 and 7.5 percent in 2011. Picture taken August 25, 2009.

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/02zb5VpgYn61Z/610x.jpg

A Palestinian vendor advertises his merchandise as people shop at a market ahead of celebrations for Eid al-Fitr in Gaza City on September 19, 2009. Muslims in the region will celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday starting September 20 or 21 with the sighting of the new moon, to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/02zb5VpgYn61Z?q=gaza+shop

I still am unable to find any wording in the Palestine Mandate, Balfour or any where else stipulating that an entity be created from Jordanian land for Palestinian Arabs next to the Palestinian Jewish entity. Once Jordan released its claim after being defeated in a multi-national attempt to destroy Jewish Pasestine, Israel could have and should have annexed it but chooses to maintain the current limbo. It was and continues to be a buffer for “self defense” against another attack from Jordan as are the Golan Heights from Syria.

Dear Mort, Israel should have learned from the Holocaust that you do not pass on to others what was done to you! Adolf Eichmann helped kill 6 million Jews. Martin Berber said, “If you kill Eichmann, you kill yourselves!” In other words, if you kill him you are on the same moral level as him. He killed you; you kill him and nothing is learned. To pass on the the Arabs all the hate, destruction, and racial discrimination that was heaped on you by the Nazis is to prove to the World that you learned nothing from the Holocaust but how to effectively subjugate an indigenous people trying to defend their land from what they perceive as a foreign invader. Israel has become what they say they hate; the oppressor! Is that clear enough for you?

To all you people who cry for terrorists: When they stop being terrorists, things get better. In the West Bank the economy grew last year by 8%, mostly because of economic aid and development FROM ISRAEL!!!! When the fighting stopped, like any other war, normal life resumed. Gaza faces similar choices. Accept peace with a Jewish Israel and stop trying to continue the war, release the illegally held Gilad Shalit prisoner, and there will be peace (and 8%/year economic growth).

Mort begins with: “Chronological List of United States Expansion”, and then provides a very useful list where USA colonial expansionism stopped in 1922 i.e. everything after that date involved trusteeships.

You do know that a trustee is not a sovereign, right, Mort?

A simple question for you:
Q: Have you ever heard of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928?

You should find out about it, because that will explain to you why American has fought many, many, many wars since 1928, but in terms of territorial expansionism has annexed precisely zippity-do-dah in all that time.

Wm Taylor Barry III.

Sir, you are beyond contempt.

Dear Mort, To engage in add-homonym attacks is to admit you have lost the argument. You are supposed to point out the flaw in my argument; if you cannot, the argument stands. Israel chose not to listen to even their own philosophers. Worse, Israel no longer lives up to traditional Jewish principles such as justice, fairness and equal rights under the law. It has now become such an aberration that Palestinians are the new Intermenchen (inferior race in English). Next step, “The Final Solution”. This is even discussed in Israel without a sense of irony. By the way, the common phrase is, “beneath contempt” and that is how I would characterize current Israeli leadership. You are merely misinformed and hold a tribalist attitude; they are doing what they do on purpose, hoping the World will see it as just misguided, but not as truly evil.

Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928: Nice one, have not heard that since high school world history & the League of Nations. It doesn’t have much to do with self defense as I recall and Israel, I maintain, is exercising her right to self defense with her continued presence in “the territories.” Maybe not wanting to violate the Pact of Paris is one of the reasons why they have not annexed the West Bank. Israel does have a treaty with Egypt and, I’ve heard, is negotiating with Syria over the Golan Heights. Unfortunately, there is no one with whom to bargain for the West Bank territories since Jordan gave it up and Arafat died. Peace is preferable but does anyone believable it to be achievable?

Mort says:
“I still am unable to find any wording in the Palestine Mandate, Balfour or any where else stipulating that an entity be created from Jordanian land for Palestinian Arabs next to the Palestinian Jewish entity.”

That statement makes about as much sense as attempting to gain meaning from a bowl of spaghetti.

The original claim that Britain acted “perfidiously” in creating a state east of the River Jordan is completely false; Article 25 of Mandate says so.

The claim that there is “nothing” that “stipulates” the creation of a state next to the “Palestinian Jewish entity” is also clearly false: that (quaintly-named) “PJe” is actually called “Israel”, and it was decided in 1947 that the “Jewish state” would share a boundary with another successor state living alongside it – the “Arab state” – and the boundaries between those two successor states to the Mandate was precisely defined.

Israel can not unilaterally expand its territory outside of those boundaries, Mort, and that is as true today as it was in May 1948 i.e. everything beyond the Partition Plan boundaries has been seized by Israel by FORCE OF ARMS, and Israel can not unilaterally claim them for itself.

The people who are living outside those boundaries of the “Jewish state” now want to take up what is rightfully theirs, and the only reason that they can’t is that a foreign (yes, a FOREIGN) army of occupation is encamped on that territory and is refusing to leave.

Mort: “Once Jordan released its claim”

Jordan’s claim to the West Bank was always without merit.

Mort: “after being defeated in a multi-national attempt to destroy Jewish Pasestine”

Transjordan was exceptionally careful in 1948-49 NOT to set foot inside any territory allocated to “the Jewish state” i.e. it made not the slightest attempt to cross the Partition Plan boundaries.

It is rather hard to “destroy” Israel if you steadfastly refuse to “invade” it, don’t you think?

Mort: “Israel could have and should have annexed it but chooses to maintain the current limbo.”

The preamble of Res 242 clearly says that international law does not allow Israel to unilaterally annex territory seized by it in the Six Day War.

Its few attempts at unilateral annexation – East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – have been repeatedly declared by the UNSC to be completely without merit i.e. “null and void”.

Israel OCCUPIES all that territory, Mort, and international law does **not** allow an occupying power to unilaterally annex occupied territory; doing that is “conquest”, and conquest is no longer legal.

Mort: “It was and continues to be a buffer for “self defense” against another attack from Jordan as are the Golan Heights from Syria.”

You are claiming that Israel has a “right” to sit its Big Fat Arse on this territory indefinitely because of its paranoid fear regarding some hypothetic future threat of attack from countries that currently have no intention of launching any such attack.

Not much of an argument, is it, Mort?

Mort: “It doesn’t have much to do with self defense as I recall and Israel, I maintain, is exercising her right to self defense with her continued presence in “the territories.” ”

OK, Mort, you seem to have a remarkably impressive ability to hop from issue to issue like a frog on a hotplate.

YOU were the one who produced a list of USA territorial expansionism, not me.

I pointed out that
(a) USA expansionism stopped in 1922
(b) the reason WHY it stopped in 1922 can be found in the Kellogg-Brian Pact that outlawed “wars of aggression”

That response being, of course, entirely in keeping with the topic of your original post.

Q: And how did you respond?
A: You suddenly want to talk about Israel again.

How odd….. you change the subject and you don’t even know it.

A befuddled mind indeed.

Mort: “Maybe not wanting to violate the Pact of Paris is one of the reasons why they have not annexed the West Bank.”

Yah Think?!?!?!?!?!?

They haven’t annexed the West Bank because “wars of aggression” have been outlawed, “conquest” is now forbidden, and A UNILATERAL ANNEXATION is CONQUEST.

Mort: Unfortunately, there is no one with whom to bargain for the West Bank territories since Jordan gave it up and Arafat died.”

In 1993 the Israeli govt formally recognized that the PLO – not Arafat, the PLO – is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Your argument that “there is no-one to talk to” is therefore rhetorical nonsense, and self-serving in the extreme.

In 1993 the PLO spoke for the majority of Palestinian Arabs.
Who speaks for them now? peace is not a close as it appeared to be in 1993.

In the 1967 Six Day War, Jordan aligned itself with Nasser’s Egypt despite an Israeli warning not to get involved in the war. This resulted in the fall of East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Israel. Besides the loss of territory, this was also an economic loss to the kingdom since much of the kingdom’s economy was based in the West Bank.
A peace treaty was signed in 1994. The treaty normalized relations between the two countries and resolved territorial disputes between them. Its signing is also closely linked with the efforts to create peace between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization representing the Palestinian Authority. It was signed at the southern border crossing of Arabah on October 26, 1994, and made Jordan only the second Arab country, after Egypt, to normalize relations with Israel.

Johnboy: “…and it was decided in 1947 that the “Jewish state” would share a boundary with another successor state living alongside it – the “Arab state” – and the boundaries between those two successor states to the Mandate was precisely defined.”

Decided by who?

For nineteen years following the 1949 Armistice Agreements until the 1967 Six Day War, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and no Arab state was created. In 1950, Jordan annexed the territories it occupied. Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank, de facto in the case of East Jerusalem.

Article 24 of the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 stated: “This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area.”

Israel captured both territories in the 1967 Six-Day War; since then they have been under Israeli control. Immediately after the war, on June 19, 1967, the Israeli government offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace. At the Khartoum Summit in September, the Arab parties responded to this overture by declaring “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.”

We can argue this forever and not agree because that’s how it’s been written and codified by all parties going back to at least 1917. There is no truth and never was, but there’s enough there for all parties to hang on to and claim as the truth. There are no good guys. There have never been any.

Mort: “In 1993 the PLO spoke for the majority of Palestinian Arabs. Who speaks for them now?”

The PLO *still* speaks for them, Mort, and Israel *still* recognizes that as a fact, because at no time has Israel *ever* repudiated that recognition.

You can’t have it both ways, Mort: the Israeli recognition of the PLO as its negotiating partner was the quid-pro-quo for the PLO recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and Israel can not repudiate one without repudiating them both.

Mort: “In the 1967 Six Day War, Jordan aligned itself with Nasser’s Egypt despite an Israeli warning not to get involved in the war.”

Man, you have a lot to learn, Mort, starting with the legal concept known as “casus feoderis”.

You may as well claim that France and Britain started WW2 because Germany tried to warn them off *even* *as* it was bashing the shit outta Poland; such a claim would be incorrect, because France, Britain, and Poland had all signed a treaty of mutual defense.

Casus feoderis.

Or you may as well claim that NATO is an illegal organization because it is predicated on the idea – perish the thought! – that an attack on one is an attack on all.

Casus feoderis.

In 1967 Israel attacked Egypt knowing full well that Egypt, Syria and Jordan had signed a treaty committing them all to a mutual defense in the face of an attack upon any of them.

Casus feoderis.

Or do you believe that there are int’l laws for western countries that don’t also available to stinky ol’ a-rabs?

Mort: “This resulted in the fall of East Jerusalem and the West Bank to Israel.”

O.C.C.U.P.A.T.I.O.N.

East Jerusalem and the West Bank is “Israeli-occupied territory” – not “Israeli sovereign territory” – and there is **no** mechanism in international law for an occupying power to unilaterally annex occupied territory.

That is C.O.N.Q.U.E.S.T., and conquest is no longer allowed.

Gary Malmud’s comment is so typical of the hasbara… the apologists for Israeli crimes. What he fails to point out is that 38 people were killed from rockets between 2000 and 2010 while 5000 Palestinians were killed at the same time. The Palestinian rockets are a response to Israeli aggression and occupation. If these same people had been the imprisoned people of Warsaw, I’m sure Malmud would have been all for the rockets fired out of that ghetto. The Jews of Warsaw were occupied just as the Palestinians of Gaza are occupied by land, sea and air. So Malmud blames the victim of Israeli terror rather than seeing the sad attempt to protect the civilians of Gaza as the same kind of attempt that any occupied people would do.

Mort, you seem to be operating under the idea that if you can keep enough balls in the air at once then nobody will notice that they are filled with hot air.

In no particular order:
A) Israel can annex the West Bank at any time, it just chooses not to.

That is nonsense; Israel is the occupying power of territory siezed by force of arms.

Any attempt by Israel to unilaterally annex that territory is therefore an attempt at “conquest”.

And “conquest” is not just “frowned upon”, it is illegal.

The illegality of conquest was first recognized in 1928, confirmed at the Nuremburg Tribunals, confirmed again in the UN Charter and confirmed countless times by UNSC resolutions too many to mention.

B) Israel is allowed to occupy the West Bank as a “buffer zone”.

That is untrue: an occupation exists for one reason only, and that reason is “self-defense against aggression”.

There is no credible threat of an invasion of Israel by Syria or Jordan, and so the argument that Israel must keep this occupation going to prevent such invasions lacks all credibility.

Israel is maintaining this occupation for a very different reason i.e. Israel is busy colonizing this territory (itself illegal), and it insists that the colonized territory MUST BE ceded to it (itself illegal), and it further insists that it will not end this occupation until that demand is met.

That makes the continuation of this occupation illegal, because it is being maintained because of Israel’s thirst for “territorial expansion”, and not for reasons of “self-defense”.

C) Israel has no-one to talk to.

Total and utter bilge, because in 1993 Israel recognized it had a negotiating partner in the PLO, and Israel has never repudiated that recognition.

This is also, of course, an attempt to create a loophole that **any** occupier could drive a Merkava tank through i.e. sieze foreign territory, and then claim that “well, gee, gosh, I’d love to hand it back, only I can’t see anyone holding their hand out”.

Look over there, Mort, because the PLO has had it’s hand up in the air since at least 1993.

ColinDale said “Israeli settlement on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem is UNLAWFUL and must cease and all so-called ’settlers’ must return to their own country”

ColinDale, do you expect any Israeli government to ever agree that the Jewish have no right to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City? If so, and if you are encouraging any friends you may have in the region to believe it, you, and they, are going to experience bitter disappointment. It is very clear from your comments, and others of a similar nature on this site, that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Great job every body should be proud of it for doing the right thing.

God Bless you all

Mort asks a very important question: “Decided by who?”

It was decided jointly by the MANDATORY (Britain) and by its SUPERVISING BODY (the UN General Assembly), who were the only two entities who mattered.

The Mandatory: because it requested a “plan”, and then took that “plan” to the UNGA for its consent (as was required under Article 27 of Mandate).

The UNGA: because when it was asked by the Mandatory for that (necessary, remember) consent said “yeah, sure, go ahead” by a vote of 33-13.

Mort: “Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and no Arab state was created.”

Irrelevent: the actions of neither Egypt nor Jordan can affect the LEGAL RIGHTS of either the “Jewish state” nor the “Arab state”, precisely because neither Egypt nor Jordan had any legal authority to overturn the Partition Plan.

Mort: “In 1950, Jordan annexed the territories it occupied.”

Irrelevent, for the same reason above.

Mort: “Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank”

Irrelevent, for the same reason above.

Mort: “Article 24 of the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 stated”…

… a self-evident truth i.e. that in 1964 the PLO did not exercise territorial sovereignty anywhere.

It still doesn’t, or haven’t you noticed?

That does not mean that the PLO was giving up its right to claim sovereignty over that territory, merely that the PLO was admitting that in 1964 (just as today) it was not in the position to press that claim.

Mort: “Israel captured both territories in the 1967 Six-Day War”

Irrelevent: occupation does not change Israel’s right to claim this territory for itself i.e. any such claim remained completely without merit.

Mort: “since then they have been under Israeli control.”

Irrelevent, for the same reason.

Mort: “Immediately after the war, on June 19, 1967, the Israeli government offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace.”

Did it now?
To whom, exactly?

Certainly not to the Syrians, the Egyptians, nor the Jordanians, none of whom ever received any such “offer” via any diplomatic channel whatsoever.

Mort: “At the Khartoum Summit in September, the Arab parties responded to this overture by declaring ‘no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.’ ”

That is untrue, on two different levels:
1) No “Arab party” received any “overture” from Israel.
2) The text of Khartoum is actually quite different:
“The Arab Heads of State have agreed to unite their political efforts at the international and diplomatic level to eliminate the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from the Arab lands which have been occupied since the aggression of June 5. This will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.”

Got that, Mort? The resolution is actually saying that FOR AS LONG AS THIS OCCUPATION CONTINUES there will be “no peace, no recognition, and no negotiation”.

Put it this way: when you compare that entire paragraph with the 2002 Saudi Plan you’ll see that they are essentially one and the same.

Yet only an idiot would claim that the Saudi Plan represents “arab rejectionism”.

Mort: “We can argue this forever and not agree because”…

…. because you are utterly incapable of understanding the difference between what are POLITCAL and MILITARY maneouvres and what is the LEGAL RIGHTS of all the parties to this conflict.

Israel has “might”, and that gives it “control”.

But in this case “might” does not make “right”, because no matter how much Israel throws its weight aroung the “rights” still belong with the Palestinians.

They were given that right in 1947, and they still have it, and Israel can’t UNILATERALLY take those rights off them.

I never said that Israel can annex the West Bank anytime they wanted to. I think they should have at the end of the 1967 war. I repeat! Immediately after the war, on June 19, 1967, the Israeli government offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace. At the Khartoum Summit in September, the Arab parties responded to this overture by declaring “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel. I will continue to repeat this vital piece of info to which you choose to ignore.

Casus foederis (check your spelling. I know it’s hard to keep track of all this high school claptrap)
I fail to see how Casus foederis applies to Israel, a country with no treaties, agreements and, arguably, allies at the time. you accuse me of having to many balls in the air yet throw in Casus foederis, the Pact of Paris, smoke & mirrors, etc.

Jordan harbors terrorists and is still a threat to Israel:

The man identified as the double agent who killed eight people at a U.S. base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian doctor recruited as a counterterrorism intelligence source, a senior Jordanian official said Tuesday.

A former U.S. intelligence official identified the suicide bomber Monday as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.

The Jordanian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities in Jordan arrested al-Balawi more than a year ago “for some suspicious information related to him” but released him because of a lack of evidence.

“After few months, he got in touch with us through the Internet and sent us several e-mails that include very important and rather dangerous information that might affect the security and stability of the country,” the official said.

“We kept in touch with him through e-mails in order to get more information and also trying to bring him over to be able to get more information. We shared and exchanged the information he gave us with some other friendly countries that are involved in countering terrorism.”

The official said Jordan could not confirm that al-Balawi was the bomber, “because we are not on the ground.”

“But we are not denying that if he is the one, then he is the Jordanian doctor,” the official said.

The December 30 blast at a U.S. base in Khost, in southeastern Afghanistan, killed seven CIA operatives including two from private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater. The eighth victim was Jordanian Army Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, a cousin of Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

U.S. sources said bin Zeid was the Jordanian operative working closely with al-Balawi, who was from the same hometown as the onetime leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Jordanian and U.S. intelligence agencies apparently believed that al-Balawi had been rehabilitated from his extremist views and were using him to hunt Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 figure, the former intelligence official said.

In a posting on its Web site last week, the Taliban in Afghanistan claimed that the bomber was an Afghan National Army soldier.

On Sunday, however, Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud said in an e-mail that his arm of the Islamic movement carried out the attack, using a Jordanian national. Mehsud’s message predicted, “This will be admitted by the CIA and the Jordanian government.”

“Look over there, Mort, because the PLO has had it’s hand up in the air since at least 1993.”

And what’s in that hand? A surface to air missile, perhaps a booby trapped infant. With whom would you like them to negotiate. Hamas? Marwan Barghouti?

This is reference material for those not familiar with the United Nations General Assembly recommendations on the partition of Palestine as well as occurrences leading up to the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Is anyone interested in this? I will post more if you are. If no one mentions it, I’m done.

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 Future Government of Palestine was a resolution adopted by the General Assembly. It was approved by a vote of 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions on November 29, 1947.The resolution recommended the division of the British Mandate of Palestine into two provisional states, one Jewish and one Arab, and a framework for economic union. The resolution reflected two competing nationalist expressions embodied in Palestine, one emanated from Europe and one emanated from the then present majority; both had been accepted as legitimate a quarter century earlier by the UN precursor agency, the League of Nations. The resolution was passed to help resolve both the recent humanitarian disaster befallen the European Jews as well as the long-running conflict between Zionist ambitions to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and the competing “civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish” Arab majority there. The General Assembly also recommended that the City of Jerusalem be placed under a special international regime, a corpus separatum, administered by the United Nations and outside both states; this was to preserve peace, given the unique spiritual and religious interests in the city among the world’s three great monotheistic religions. A transitional period under UN auspices began with the adoption of the resolution and was scheduled to last until the two states were established. Although the resolution contemplated a gradual withdrawal of British forces and termination of the Mandate by August 1, 1948, and full independence of the new states by 1 October 1948, this did not happen; the passage of the partition plan immediately instigated a civil war in Palestine.

With the fighting continuing and the planned British withdrawal approaching, the United Nations Security Council reached an impasse on March 5, 1948. The Partition Plan called on the Security Council to use its Chapter VII powers to prevent the parties from using force to alter the boundary settlement. There was no consensus among the members of the Council regarding the use of force to impose the partition. The United States subsequently recommended a temporary UN trusteeship for Palestine “without prejudice to the character of the eventual political settlement”, and the Security Council voted to send the matter back to the General Assembly for further deliberation. In May 1948, the simultaneous British withdrawal and Israel’s unilateral Declaration of Independence, which in part cites the UN resolution as recognizing the right of the Jewish people to establish a state, led to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The General Assembly decided to appoint a Mediator, and relieved the established Palestine Commission from any further exercise of responsibility under Resolution 181 .Although the original mediator was assassinated, continued UN mediation efforts resulted in the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which temporarily delineated borders and greatly quieted the fighting between the parties.
The 1949 Armistice Agreements are a set of agreements signed during 1949 between Israel and neighboring Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan,and Syria. The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and established armistice lines between Israel and the Jordanian-held West Bank, also known as the Green Line. The United Nations established supervising and reporting agencies to monitor the established armistice lines. In addition, discussions related to the armistice enforcement, led to the signing of the separate Tripartite Declaration of 1950 between the United States, Britain and France. In it, they pledged to take action within and outside the United Nations to prevent violations of the frontiers or armistice lines. It also outlined their commitment to peace and stability in the area, their opposition to the use or threat of force, and reiterated their opposition to the development of an arms race. These lines held until the 1967 Six-Day War.

Mort: “I never said that Israel can annex the West Bank anytime they wanted to”

Mort [earlier]: “Once Jordan released its claim after being defeated in a multi-national attempt to destroy Jewish Pasestine, Israel could have and should have annexed it but chooses to maintain the current limbo”

Comment, please.

Mort: “Immediately after the war, on June 19, 1967, the Israeli government offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace.”

Repetition does not make a lie true, Mort.

None of those countries received any offer through any diplomatic channels at any time before the Khartoum conference, and I challenge you to prove otherwise.

Mort: “I fail to see how Casus foederis applies to Israel”

!!!!!!!

Talk about playing dumb!

It applied to JORDAN, which is why **YOUR** statement “In the 1967 Six Day War, Jordan aligned itself with Nasser’s Egypt despite an Israeli warning not to get involved in the war” is clap-trap; Israel couldn’t “warn off” Jordan, precisely because an aggressor can’t “warn off” the signatories to a mutual-defense treaty.

That. How. Such. Treaties. Work.

As for the remainder of your post, all of it is completely irrelevent to the issue under discussion.

A case of “never mind the quality, feel the width”, heh, Mort?

Mort: “I never said that Israel can annex the West Bank anytime they wanted to”

Mort [earlier]: “Once Jordan released its claim after being defeated in a multi-national attempt to destroy Jewish Pasestine, Israel could have and should have annexed it but chooses to maintain the current limbo”

Comment, please.

Mort: “Immediately after the war, on June 19, 1967, the Israeli government offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace.”

Repetition does not make a lie true, Mort.

None of those countries received any offer through any diplomatic channels at any time before the Khartoum conference, and I challenge you to prove otherwise.

Mort: “I fail to see how Casus foederis applies to Israel”

!!!!!!!

Talk about playing dumb!

It applied to JORDAN, which is why **YOUR** statement “In the 1967 Six Day War, Jordan aligned itself with Nasser’s Egypt despite an Israeli warning not to get involved in the war” is clap-trap; Israel couldn’t “warn off” Jordan, precisely because an aggressor can’t “warn off” the signatories to a mutual-defense treaty.

That. Is. How. Such. Treaties. Work.

As for the remainder of your post, all of it is completely irrelevent to the issue under discussion.

A case of “never mind the quality, feel the width”, heh, Mort?

Mort: “This is reference material for those not familiar with the United Nations General Assembly recommendations on the partition of Palestine ”

Here are some questions for you, Mort:
Q1: Did the Mandatory request a plan of action from a UN-appointed committee, or didn’t it?

Q2: Did that committee recommend a Partition Plan, or didn’t it?

Q3: Did the Mandatory take that Partition Plan to the UNGA for its “consent”, or didn’t it?

Q4: Did Article 27 of Mandate say that such “consent” was the ONLY legal hurdle the Mandatory had to leap, or didn’t it?

Q5: Did the Mandatory gain that necessary “consent” from the UNGA, or didn’t it?

I contend that the answer to all five questions is “yes”, and that as a result the MANDATORY (not the UN, remember, the MANDATORY) had ticked off all the steps that were required to make that Partition Plan the **only** legal method of ending the Mandate.

And that BECAUSE Israel is one of the two successor states to that Mandate then Israel is, to this very day, bound by that decision, and its attempts to expand its territory outside of the boundaries defined by that Partition Plan are illegal under international law.

Ziad Comment posted January 26, 2010 @ 11:10 pm

I never said that all muslims/arabs are terrorists. However, it is the case that an overwhelming majority of the world’s terrorists are muslims/arabs. They don’t appear out of nowhere either – they have substantial support from their “peaceful” muslim/arab brethren.

Of course you “come in different flavors” – but they are all foul tasting.

As for Islam not being the bad guy for the next decade, why won’t it be? What’s going to change? I wish you were right, but fascistic Islam is only just getting started. Its terrorism and general violence has been continuous. There will be no magic transformation in the next 10 years. When the source is evil – so too will be its seed.

In the 1930s – word was coming out about the attacks on Christians, some Muslims and Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine. Finally after international outcry, Britain decided to do something about this – and went after the “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem” Haji al Husseini (uncle of Yassir Arafat — there is the main connection). al Husseini was also one of the founding members of the Muslim Brotherhood (which has spawned al Queda, Hezbollah, et al – what we see today). In 1938 al Husseini fled the British colony and via Iraq, Iran went to Nazi Germany where he became the “bedpartner” of Hitler. The tie has been set. To this day, the same propaganda that the Nazis have used against Jews and other enemies is akin to what we see today against Israel, Coptics, some Muslims and other enemies of Jihadist Islam. What is also amazing is that no one speaks of the 6,500 Muslims who were murdered for saying NO to the Nazis and the Muslim Brotherhood (keep in mind there were two Muslim SS corps blessed for Allah’s service by Husseini), and over 19,000 “Arabs” also for saying no in the Desert Campaign of the 1940s. Today there is hardly any outcry against the terrorism that is committed in the name of Allah but many hate websites (i.e. KKK) will also have links to pro-Islamic Jihad sites. There is the partnership and as FDR had stated which Bush had copied — either you are with us or against us.

We have appeasers in Congress who would have also appeased Hitler. Those who signed that letter would also applaud Hitler and some have even gone out of their way to meet Ahmedinajihad (spelling purposely askewed). Sad that history repeats itself.

Islam is a false religion directed to an apostate god (little ‘g’) and people like Ellison are perverters of our American constitution..

Even though these have a big brother in high places (Barack Hussein Obama), they will ultimately die and have birds eat their bones for their stance against the people of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Sorry Mohammed, should have been a nicer guy!

God bless these brave men and women who voiced their concern over Gaza blockade! We are humans.

Think of all the German and Japanese civilians Roosevelt killed in world war II and the Iraqi children Clinton killed during his presidency. Ah yes, but Gazans are different.

Oh and by the way, how about dropping humanitarian supplies to peopke in Taliban controlled areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan

Rob: one day every knee shall bow to the God of Israel. Including yours.

This is a great start! Thank you for standing up for human rights and global justice. This is the list of people who weren’t bought: Good for Change! Good for Hope!

[...] Comments Rep. Keith Ellison has written a letter to President Obama urging him to use diplomatic pressure to end Israel’s [...]

[...] Rep. Keith Ellison has written a letter to President Obama urging him to use diplomatic pressure to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza. 50 members of the House have signed the letter, including Ellison’s fellow Minnesotans Betty McCollum and James Oberstar. [...]

Why is the US giving billions to Hamas and Fatah? If the US wants to help the civilians in Gaza, make sure that Hamas is removed. Gaza currently gets enough food and water and medicine but everything that goes into Gaza is stolen by Hamas. Hamas takes care of its people first. That is the true reason that Gaza is suffering.

Several members of the Goldstone Mission have had significant links to NGOs, including HRW, Amnesty International, and PCHR. These same NGOs were among the most cited in the Goldstone report. These connections, which were not disclosed by the Mission, call into question the ability of panel members and staff to objectively evaluate information submitted by these organizations. These conflicts are in clear violation of the International Bar Association’s London-Lund Guidelines for Fact Finding Missions.

* Three members of the Mission – Goldstone, Hina Jilani, and Desmond Travers – signed a March 2009 letter initiated by Amnesty International and widely publicized, stating that “events in Gaza have shocked us to the core.”
* The fourth member, Christine Chinkin, who declared Israel’s actions to be a “war crime” and delegitimized Israel’s right to self-defense while the fighting in Gaza was still underway, was also previously a consultant to Amnesty International.
* Goldstone mission staff researcher, Sareta Ashraph, is a UK lawyer and amember of Amnesty International who has a history of anti-Israel political activity. For instance, in 2003, she was an organizer for a Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights “lawfare” lecture given by Raji Sourani, head of PCHR, and chaired by Daniel Machover, the attorney responsible for filing PCHR’s 2005 case against Doron Almog and a leading proponent of lawfare. Ashraph also worked in the West Bank on “investigations of allegations of violations of international humanitarian law following ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ in 2002.”
* Francesca Marotta, Head of the Secretariat UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, is a long-time employee of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights as Coordinator of the Methodology, Education and Training Unit, Research and Right to Development Branch and the “UNHCHR officer responsible for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” In 1997 and 1999, she held meetings with PCHR.
* As previously reported by NGO Monitor, Goldstone was an HRW board member at the time of his appointment. Although he stepped down after NGO Monitor pointed to this conflict of interest, his mission has been vigorously promoted by both HRW and Ken Roth. Goldstone’s September 17, 2009 oped in the New York Times closely echoed language from a September 16, 2009 HRW press release. (In this time frame, HRW was forced to suspend and open an investigation of “senior military expert” Marc Garlasco, who co-authored a number of reports targeting Israel.)

Phil,

Do you realize you are calling 1 billion people on this plantet “foul”?

I am Muslim, but you, and the hate you spew put you closer to Al Qaeda and the rest of them than I will ever be.

If Israel wants to occupy all of Palestine, that’s fine. All countries must act in their best interest, and it doesn’t make Israel an evil country.

But American’s don’t have to finance it, support it, and make an enemy of 1 billion people on Israel’s behalf. It is not in America’s interest.

Israel’s worst enemy are irreconcilable fundamentalists like yourself. YOU HAVE TO REALIZE THAT.

David
Comment posted January 28, 2010 @ 2:19 am

David,

Thanks for the tip. My source was dubious, I would have to double check it. Is it a false quote that has spread like wildfire? If so, I apologize for perpetuating it.

Mick,

Your God and mine are one and the same. Did you know the history of Mecca? Muslims believe Abraham built it.

“After the departure and return of Abraham to Mecca, and his discovery that Hagar had died, Abraham was then ordered by God to make Hagar’s house into a temple where people could pray. Therefore, he demolished the house and began construction of the Ka’ba (Mecca). God gave Abraham precise instructions concerning how to rebuild the shrine and Gabriel showed him the location.”

If you consider Muslims your enemy, then you should know him. You might find he is not your enemy at all!

I love you Mick.

Book and verse please ziad. Swopes says this is an urban legend

Book and verse please ziad. Snopes says this is an urban legend

Johnboy & Mort,

I recommend a Biography on the late king Hussein. Called the The Lion of Jordan. It explains the rational of why the King went to war.

He had to appease the street, to show that he had not simply abandoned the Palestinians. And it was expected that Israel would try and take Jerusalem, it is after all the most prized city.

Anyhow, Jordan has the longest and safest border with Israel. Relations between the two countries were fantastic until Netanyahu came along (the first time).

I recommend the book, it is a fun read. Avi Shlaim is the author I believe.

Yours,

Ziad

Mick,

Muslims believe in Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (as prophet) and everybody else in between. We name our children after them, and it is what I was taught since I was a child.

You will learn more by dialogue than by depending on snopes.

Check out islamcity dot com and click on understanding Islam to the left to learn more.

I don’t know of specific koranic versus but I am sure you can find them in a translated version in any bookstore.

What I can tell you is that one of Islam’s most important holidays is to celebrate the day Abraham sacrificed a sheep instead of his son. Eid al-Adha.

I can understand your disbelief after years of being told to fear Muslims, however our beliefs are more similar than you may be comfortable to learn.

Ignorance is food for hate and demagoguery. That is especially true in the Muslim world too. However I expect better from somebody who lives in a first world country and who is privileged with an education.

Love they neighbor dear Mick. The war in the Middle East has nothing to do with God. It is because of how we treat each other.

Much love

Ziad

[...] a little back story: recently 54 members of Congress and major peace groups (among them Peace Now, J Street and B’Tselem) sent separate letters to [...]

[...] Ben-David has worked himself into a frenzy over the letter sent by 54 members of Congress calling on Obama to pressure Israel and Egypt to end the blockade on [...]

[...] 54 congressmen sent a letter to President Obama on January 21 asking him to press Israel (and nominally Egypt) to lift the [...]

[...] 54 congressmen sent a letter to President Obama on January 21 asking him to press Israel (and nominally Egypt) to lift the [...]

Its all very simple – If the Muslims laid down their arms today, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its arms, it would be destroyed. A real change is needed from the Arab and Muslim nations for peace to occur. Its that simple.

Ziad; “Avi Shlaim is the author I believe”? Really? He was illiterate academic in Israel and couldn’t find any real job then he moved to Britain and turn to be Anti Israel in any level. He feels hurt and neglected by the Israeli academia. No wonder the British gave him a post, what the British really know about the ME? If they were really educated they wouldn’t give Shlaim any job. You have to remember, hatred is not a good basis for academic virtue.

Fifty-four COngresspeople mouthing platitudes about Israel’s issues won’t change anybody’s mind. While they acknowledge that Israel’s security concerns, they glide over them with the the statement that “We recognize that the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keanly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups. This concern must be addressed without resulting in the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.”

Really. It must be addressed?There’s that old reliable passive voice again. By whom excatly, and how excatly, will Israel’s legitimate security needs be met? Not by these 54 meely-mouthed Congresspeople, that’s certain.

They are bleeding all the time for the people who ELECTED HAMAS as their government, a recognized terror group who to this day explicity denies Israel’s right to exist. How about a little bleeding for the Israelis who live in bomb shelters and never know who is going to strike next, or when?

Rather than “…give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions (by lifting the restrictions)’, this willonly embolded them in thinking that Hamas is successful in getting what they want by terror.

It’s time for your Congersspeople to put away your childish and dangerous naievete. Let the Gazans get rid of their thug-o-cratic government and show some statehood potential, and we can talk. Until then, don’t presume to lecture from the safety of your marble chamber to those who live under the gun.

[...] Cast Lead against Gaza (the other more Liberal Sanchez sister voted yes) and her singing onto a letter by Representative Keith Ellison and others urging President Obama to place diplomatic pressure easing- not ending -  the [...]

[...] Gaza in late 2008/2009 (the other more Liberal Sanchez sister voted yes) and her singing onto a letter by Representative Keith Ellison and others urging President Obama to place diplomatic pressure easing – not ending – [...]