Obama is willing to claw his way to power over the bodies of Iraqis and Iranians and by ridiculing the suffering and discrimination (its called 'blame the victims') of Palestinians and African Americans. He'll do anything to please the elite who fund political campaigns in this country! His shameless groveling before the AIPAC is indicative of his willingness to promote any policy, no matter how damaging to innocent victims, and no matter how contrary to the interests of the broad masses of the American people, in order to satisfy a tiny but powerful elite both here and in Tel Aviv. Shameless!

NOOOOOO Obama!!!!!!

You said it right the first time! Jerusalem should be one and undivided, under the rule of israel not islamic fundementalist arabs.

Robin, palestinians are hardly innocent victims, and Obama has talked about pulling out of iraq so your point there is moot.

There is no pleasing some people.

A R I E L _ S H A R O N,

It must be the moon or something, as this is the first time we agree on ANYTHING:"NOOOOOO Obama!!!!!!"

haha veracity.

We should go feed polar bears together.

You arn't a cute hippie chick, now are you?

I thought that the partition of Palestine in 1947 gave 45% of the land to the Palestinians who made up 80% of the population at the time and 55% to the Jewish European immigrants who made up the other 20%. As unfair as that seems, in the past 60 years those immigrants have managed to claw 78% of the land into the borders of Israel and are working very hard on the last 22% made up of a swiss cheese system of checkpoints and settlements on the West Bank and an open air prison in Gaza. Do you really think they would be happy with 100% of the land and 100% of the Palestinians in exile? They have their own manifest destiny to reshape the Middle East. Now isn't that what GWB was talking about when he promised to do that? I want all those running and sitting in November to declare any dual citizenships, so I know whose interests they want to protect. Are you listening Joe?

Right outsider.

And guess who rejected partition? That's right, the arabs.

Open air prison in gaza? Gaza claims to be a foriegn country, how can it be an israeli jail? And what about the egyptians that are also "blockading" gaza?

Ariel Sharon,
What made you take the name of a war criminal? Do you admire his passionate racism? His religious zealotry? His penchant for murder? Or is it because you are both nearly brain dead?

What matters is will the Zionists take the world to hell with them or not?

Israel has ultimate CONTROL over what gets into GAZA and what gets out , as well as completely controlling the coast, to a point where Palestinian fishing boats CAN'T fish. They control check points deciding who gets through , if at all , the majority of Palestinians working outside, work in Israel , not Egypt. In addition, in case you haven't noticed shAronie , Israel kills Palestinians 12 , 21, 24, a day , that goes unreported in U.S. media , so you need to turn off Faux News , and get some BASIC facts straight .
It's Israel that's confiscating Arab land yearly , NOT Egypt and it's Israel that's arresting with out charges thousands of Palestinians , NOT Egypt .
Besides , they never declared themselves a "country " only Sovereignty , besides you can make any declaration you want , but if the regional Super power (Israel) exercises a BRUTAL, Aggressive and oppressive policy towards GAZA and West Bank , it doesn't matter what is declared , Palestinians have little power compared to Israel .

zzz, ariel sharon is a great man and a hero to the jewish people. War criminal? Why, because he won the wars he fought?

Kahon, and the palestinians have ultimate control over whether or not they decide to launch rockets and suicide bombs at israel. This is not a one way street, and your assesment of "power" means little when for cheap terror groups can kill hundreds of civilians. The palestinians don't need power, they have depravity.

Frankly, I think that the Israeli lobby wields far too much power with the American government that has, much to its shame, done nothing to assist the struggling Palestinians to establish a homeland and sovereign nation. That is why the Middle East will continue to fester and burn, because whatever Israel wants, Israel gets, and until the Israel-Palestinian issue is peaceably resolved, nothing will be accomplished in that volatile part of the world and it will continue to be a sore spot and a breeding ground for terrorism.

It's a shame that no one's got the cojones to just stand up to the Israeli lobby and tell them that what Israel is doing to its Palestinian neighbors is unconscionable and immoral. And anyway, why should the US have to be the ones to clean up the mess left by the British after the First World War when they broke up the old Ottoman Empire and created artificial nation states comprised of people who had, for centuries, hated each other? Why won't the British own up to their own sins of the past and contribute to trying to forge a just and lasting Middle East peace? Why should the US be stuck trying to clean up a decades old mess that wasn't of our creation and for which we bear no blame, anyway?

Ariel_Sharon,

People in persistent vegetative states often forget history, so let me remind you:

During the 1982 Lebanon War, while Sharon was Defense minister, the Sabra and Shatila massacre took place, in which between 800 and 3,500 Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps were killed by the Phalanges—Lebanese Maronite Christian militias. The Security Chief of the Phalange militia, a Lebanese himself, Elie Hobeika, was the ground commander of the militiamen who entered the Palestinian camps and killed the Palestinians. The Phalange had been sent into the camps to clear out PLO fighters, and Israeli forces had been sent to the camps at Sharon's command to provide them with logistical support and to guard camp exits. The incident led some of Sharon's critics to refer to him as "the Butcher of Beirut"

The Kahan Commission found the Israeli Defence Forces indirectly responsible for the massacre and charged Sharon with "personal responsibility." It recommended in early 1983 the removal of Sharon from his post as Defense minister. In their recommendations and closing remarks, the commission stated:

"We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense [Ariel Sharon] bears personal responsibility. In our opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office - and if necessary, that the Prime Minister consider whether he should exercise his authority under Section 21-A(a) of the Basic Law: the Government, according to which "the Prime Minister may, after informing the Cabinet of his intention to do so, remove a minister from office."

sharon, cannot wait to see your face, a little back and fort you and I. I imagine, as the username suggests, you are "Polar", can you Bear[sic] it, opposites in that you are nothing more than a useless whiner whom could never hold his/her/its place in a debate. You do PISS and you do MOAN but you have never suggested anything other than a one sided view and rant on that particulary pointless, which is indicative of every word you type, opinion that is a never ending road of any racist.
As well as the name of the Psychopath and War criminal you choose and call Hero, were any person to have the username Josef Mengale, would this not be disturbing a nd sickening?

zzz, I don't even want to hear this crap and Sabra and Shantilla. That was carried out by lebonese christians, and in typical cowardly arab style, blamed on jews.

Israel certainly does not have an obligation to save people who want to murder israelis. The christian phangealists was some fucked-up people, but they were the only allies israel had, and israel could not afford to anger them.

Do you think palestinians would have saved israelis? Come on.

Ariel_Sharon:

In response to your comment about the '47 UN partition, it's a funny thing how Zionists always claim this as some moral high ground that Israel took by accepting the partition... well of course the Israelis accepted the partition and the Arabs rejected it, because Israelis went from claiming hardly any of the land to claiming MOST of it overnight, while the arabs would have gone from owning almost all of the land to less than half. Now tell me, what group in history, what ethnicity, what nation, what people has EVER voluntarily given over half of their land to foreign migrants? When? Who?

So why would you expect the Palestinians to do that? Because everyone back in '47 knew the Palestinians would reject it... because everyone would have rejected if they were in the Palestinians' position.

Including you.

Turce, mengele and other of his ilk are considered heros in the arab world. I don't thikn Sharon cut babies eyeballs open, while they were still alive, without anathesia, which Mengele did.

Back to Obama and the article ......

The question is whether Obama will muster some courage and bring in real change or not. The choices are pretty clear: stop writing blank checks to Tel Aviv, start listening to Israeli peace activists, and start insisting Israel start complying with basic human rights and international law.

The other road is not change but continuation: Continue sponsoring racism and discrimination; Continue fueling the hatred and conflict which is very profitable for the war makers.

Obama is going to have to go a lot further than he did in the qualifying comments he made in this article.

Gadal, what would the arabs stand to lose by partition? They didn't have a state on the land to begin with, it was a british colony. Before it was a british colony, it was the Ottoman empire.

So I want my small town to be a state, can I reject the articles of incorporation, and then start murdering people who move in?

The partition was not a case of ownership of land, it was a case of the political control of the country. There was no action afoot to deprive palestinians living in israel of their land, and many thousands still live there today. Why do they still have land?

Ariel_Sharon

I'm sorry you don't like being reminded of history but:

The Kahan Commission (established by the Israeli government and composed of Jewish members of the Israeli Supreme Court and the military) did not, as you say "in typical cowardly arab style" blame the Jews, they blamed Ariel Sharon.

But yes, Ariel Sharon is Jewish, if that's what you mean.

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. PEOPLE ARGUING BULLSHIT 50 YEARS AFTER IT WAS PROVEN BULLSHIT. The Israeli's did what white guys did in the US. Chaim Azriel Weizmann, the first president of Israel said it long and long ago: "We're not going to let 600000 niggers stand between us and Ha-Aretz Israel." Little wonder so many of those Habiru came from the US.

And they didn't let "600000 niggers" stand between them and their "Manifest Destiny". The rest is just crap. Anyone wasting their time arguing with bullshit humans who are little more than illiterate apologists for the Authoritarians they worship, should get another hobby. Bottom line: The Palestinians have dark skins, they have something the Habiru wants, they are going to die, and America is funding and will fund it to fruition. After all, it worked for us, right?

Any other questions.

zzz, and I disagree with that cowardly commission. Again, I don't support the lebonese christians, and what they did was sick. But it was not as sick as what those palestinians would do to israelis if they had the chance. Asking jews to step into that is like saying we should have stopped the SS from killing the SA during night of the long knives.

No thank you.

Lucky, that's idiotic and racist. A lot of israelis have dark skins too, darker in fact then the palestinians since many thousands of israelis are black africans. The sephardic jews are also often darker then arabs, and of course many jews in israel ARE arab. Your analysis is racist and childish.

Ariel_Sharon:

Quit being stupid. Look at what happened in every other "british colony" in the region. They all became, by one means or other, independent nations. Now, why is it that Palestine is the only place where that didn't happen? Because someone prevented it from happening, by the use of military force. Face it dude, Israel is built on taking the land by force. That's it. There is no other way that Israel COULD have come into existence. Try to conjure up for me any scenario by which Israel comes into existence without using military force to push the Palestinians off of their land. You can't do it, because it is not possible.

I know this, because it's true for my country (United States) as well. The only difference I will claim on that point is that I am actually honest with myself about it.

So, the man goes and makes a major policy speech on his plans for US-Israeli policy to the largest and most influential Israeli lobby group in the country. In this speech he speaks about an issue that has been a center-point of negotiations for 40 years, and around which lots of very carefully phrased and parsed language has developed. And we are supposed to believe that every word of that speech wasn't carefully crafted by speech-writers and policy experts?

If there wasn't such a proven record of the crimes that Israel has committed, then the professional liars they send out to try to con people into thinking otherwise wouldn't be necessary.

Everyone knows what Israel has done and is still doing. When you get one of their agent provacatuers out here, just publish links to what's out there. Don't bother arguing with them, because they are a paid fool who's out here just to argue.

Instead, just do a little google, find one link like this one, and post it.
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=143

http://books.google.com/books?id=nj5OVveKZzAC&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=pilger+palestine+refugee+
camps+massacre&source=web&ots=tfz-8lfOU6&sig=8ADjK_bUOQHl86FvkU-ZU4CdJgg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=
book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA276,M1

(you'll have to paste that one back together in your browser address bar)

Whatever, don't get worked up about the argument. Debating the issue is good practice, and some people that are more neutral on the issue might read these comments and be influenced one way or the other. Just posting links without thinking through a precise argument for the particular situation is kind of lazy in my opinion. And I doubt many people will follow the link anyways.

Indeed, Samson. Check out GIYUS - Give Israel Your United Support. It is an organisation which can muster tens of thousands to bombard the media and the web with propaganda in the Israeli cause. Think the talking points look familiar? They've been fed to the posters by GIYUS for parroting at every opportunity. This doesn't mean there really is a majority consensus in favour of Israel out there, or the what is being said is true. It's partly noise, designed to drown out every other view, and partly a drum to encourage sympathisers with the notion that they are not alone. And it is wholly antipathetic to genuine information and debate.

Obama clearly says whatever he thinks will be popular with the audience in front of him. Or he says whatever he thinks will be the best political position for today.

What this means is that you just have to peg him as a liar and a manipulator and stop paying any attention to his words. The question solely becomes, 'do I want a liar and a manipulator who can't be trusted to rule my country (and the world)?'

Samson: Uh... and our other choices would be??

But someone like our friendly posting war criminal has other results in mind. Someone like that is not posting to try to win over people. Instead, the point is to divert the discussion.

Its basically the same tactic that both the communists and the fascists used. Back in the days when people had to meet in person, they'd send people into the meetings of opponents to disrupt them. And one way of doing it was exactly this technique of going in and making provocative statements and trying to start a big argument.

Winning the argument isn't the point. The point is that everyone spends all their time arguing and nothing constructive comes out of it. So, you see a site like this where most people already agree, and instead of any sort of constructive discussion about what to do about it evolving, instead you see an argument with a war criminal.

Maybe you 'win' the argument, but just by having the argument Arial accomplished what he came here to do.

Okay, I see what you are saying on not responding to Ariel_Sharon. I think though that maybe some points have to be addressed, cause I worry that someone will read this and think "why didn't they counter his arguments?" but maybe that should just be one post and leave it at that.

There's always more than two names on the ballot.

The left faces a recurring problem. Everytime they fall for this con that there is no other choice, they dig themselves a deeper hole. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.

When you find yourself in a country where you government clearly does not respond to the desires of the people on issue after issue, the first thing to do is to stop supporting the same liars and conmen that have gotten you into this mess.

The key is to realize that a 'win' for the Democrats is 'loss' for us. These people do not represent us any more than the Republicans do. Its more like a street con where there's the person who appears out of the crowd to 'oppose' the hustler in a bet.

So, I say go find your local Green Party and support their ticket. Start building a party that will represent you, instead of constantly rationalizing all the lies about why you have to support someone who doesn't give a flip about you or your interests.

Having we had enough lying con-men Presidents yet?

___ A _ L _ L ___,

This is a very lively thread, but our "buddy" is now self-acknowledged "war criminal", per: ARIEL says "Collective Punishment is Required"This LINK is to just a part of the actively ongoing thread from the 11th:'This Is Like Apartheid': ANC Veterans Visit West Bank

Want to have a HOOT ?

ARIEL's even brung out how MLK supports Israel … … … ( as if these quotes were too contrary for me "loving Palestinians killers", but are better matched to his own ZIONIST predilections ??? )

Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King

As for the thing about Obama, I am not saying that we should blindly support him... not at all, that's crazy, but what I am saying is that we have to deal with pragmatic realities too. The fact is, a lot of important decisions for the future of our planet are going to be decided in the next ten or fifteen years. I think many of those decisions may be irreversible, or at least it will take a very long time to reverse them. And while I do vote green locally (of course) and want to build the party, the reality is we don't have time to build the green party up to the point of winning national elections quickly enough to, say, stop another war against Iran or to deal with the extreme economic crises that may well be on the horizon. Sorry if that sounds cynical, but it's true. And if you are saying that Gore would have done the exact same things that Bush has done the last seven and a half years then your thinking is just too black and white for me to relate to very well. I don't trust Obama, but I trust Obama to be Obama... meaning we have to make it politically expedient for him to do the right thing on at least the issues where we have some leverage. And we have to make more convincing arguments, we have to make people feel like the left can actually address their self-interests, instead of just sounding like we are quoting a human rights group or the whole "Europe does it better thing" all the time (cause I live in Europe, and sometimes it works better but sometimes it doesn't at all).

And face it, the Green party made a bad strategy decision with Nader, and that is part of the reason why it is behind in working its way up to the national level. Cause Nader appears to have no interest in building a new party or a movement for change... and with a movement that is supposed to be grassroots, doesn't it make more sense to start at the local level and prove that the Green party is capable of good efficient governance, and then work its way up, instead of trying to start with President and work its way down?? I think that makes a lot more sense, and Nader was a huge distraction from that goal in the end... and now he keeps running every four years, not even part of a party... why? I don't see any strategy to it at all. And in my opinion, good politics without any strategy is no better than bad politics... cause if you don't think through how you are going to accomplish your goals, then you aren't going to accomplish them.

David Ben Gurion once said "The present map of Palestine was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults should strive to fulfil - from the Nile to the Euphrates." He also said "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country." And "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?"

Ariel Sharon, like the other Ariel Sharon has a disgusting attitude. The reason to not respond to this kind of close-mindedness is to avoid having this drivel to step over all the time.

There are 1,600 "refusenik" Israeli soldiers who have had an epiphany and choose to go to jail rather than continue to abuse, brutalize and oppress Palestinians. I listened to some of them and they talked about how they had learned from childhood on that Palestinians were evil and Israel has to be defended from these barbabaric Arabs. As they were following their orders and contributing to the suffering of Palestinians, it began to dawn on them that they were the ones who were barbaric and they began to see the Palestinian women as they saw their own mothers, and they saw the children as they saw Israeli children. They were amazed at how blind they had been, and how much the propaganda they had been fed made them blind for so many years, and how they could possibly not have seen that the Palestinians were an oppressed colonized people. I hope more Israelis will learn to see reality.

Israel is a failed state. Israel and Palestine should be placed under UN administration for at least 25 years. Jerusalem should be placed under permanent UN administration as an international city and the UN headquarters.

lol yes tommy, let's have the UN come in, so that maybe palestinians and israelis will start cannibalizing each other like they do in UN administered Congo.

Jesus, bringing the UN into this just shows how unspeakably fucktarded some of you guys are.

The palestinians are not "oppressed people". They are people who are trying their best the oppress israelis, and failing miserably thanks to israel's prowess. To me, however, its the thought that counts.

If israel stopped doing all the thihngs you consider "oppression", palestinians not only would not stop killing israelis, but they would find it far easier to do so.

"ariel sharon is a great man and a hero to the jewish people"

That is not a universal opinion among Jews by any stretch of the imagination.

Jclient, you're right.

I'm probably only talking about a measley 95% of us.

Excuse me, Murderer Sharon, are you completely ignorant of all other media reports except those that deal with the persons that Occupy the Palestinians homeland?
These are the only times you use the provocation known to all.

Samson: The only way to support third parties is to change ballot access laws and promote Instant Runoff Voting. Even Teddy Roosevelt couldn't pull off a third party victory. What to do do about Obama? I don't know. Read the New Yorker article. I'm sure it's everywhere. I read it on Huffington Post

zzz: Why cite Sabra and Shatila when there's Qibya?

Barack: We understood you fine the first time. No need to "explain" things to those of us you figure were too dumb to understand you the first time.

Jerusalem is a universal city it either belongs to all or to none. No one has claim all have claim to quote a good movie on the topic.

'zzz, I don't even want to hear this crap and Sabra and Shantilla. That was carried out by lebonese christians, and in typical cowardly arab style, blamed on jews. '

hey aerial, what a way to speak of the very allies whom you got to do your dirty business. Dont you remember what you did, it was you who commandeered the operation.

'Ariel Sharon initiated the Sabra-Shatila massacre in which between 1000 and 3000 people (mostly Palestinians) were murdered, and now leads a terrorist campaign against all Palestinians living in the occupied territories of the West Bank.

As commander of the notorious Unit 101, Sharon led attacks on Palestinian villages in which women and children were killed. The massacre in the West Bank village of Qibya, on October 14, 1953, was perhaps the most notorious. His troops blew up 45 houses and 69 Palestinian civilians — about half of them women and children — were killed. — The Electronic Intifada'
http://www.serendipity.li/zionism/israel_terr.htm

'The legal case against Ariel Sharon
Sultana Tafadar
Assalaamu alaikum.1
On 12th February 2003, the Court of Cassation, the highest Court in Belgium, ruled that
Ariel Sharon, Israel's current Prime Minister, and the man widely charged with sparking
the second Palestinian Intifada, after his provocative visit to the temple Mount, could be
tried for war crimes after he leaves his position of Prime Minister of Israel. It ruled that
the investigation and trial of Sharon could proceed even if he was not physically present
in the country. Moreover, it held that action against his co-defendant, Amos Yaron
former Israeli Army chief of staff could begin immediately.
The infamous massacre in Sabra and Shatila is imprinted in our collective memory as an
atrocious act committed against the Palestinian people. The Belgian Court decision is a
landmark ruling making real the possibility of seeking justice and redress for the victims.
It marks a turning point in a period of fifty years whereby Israel has been allowed to
evade and disregard the international rule of law without consequences, where grave
human rights atrocities have been committed by Isreali perpetrators, safe in the
knowledge that they could expect impunity.
The implications of the Court ruling helps to break down this wall of impunity that has
protected such people, opening up the possibility of seeking justice, not just for past
atrocities, but for present ones. The case agianst Ariel Sharon was lodged in Belgium on
the 18th June 2001, by 23 Lebanese and Palestinian survivors of the 1982 Sabra and
Shatila massacres. They filed the case under the Belgian Act concering the punishment of
grave breaches of international humanitarian law, enacted on 16th June 1993 and later
modified on 10th February 1999 so as to conform to the requirements of the Rome
Statute. It allows Belgian courts to prosecute foreigners for certain offences committed
abroad, with regards to massacres committed between the 16th and the 18th of September
1982 in the two refugee camps in Beirut. Ariel Sharon, the then Israeli Defence Minister,
as well as other Israelis and Lebanese responsible, were charged with grave violations of
international humanitarian law, including acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and
crimes agianst persons and goods as protected under the Geneva Conventions.
The fundamantal argument of the case rests on Ariel Sharon's command responsibility as
general of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) which, as an occupying force in Beirut, was
responsible for the safety of the population. The Forth Geneva Convention, relative to
the protection of civilian persons in time of war to which Israel is a signatory, provides
for the protection of persons who, in case of a conflict or occupation, are in the hands of
a party to the conflict or occupying power of which they are not nationals.
The residents of Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were persons protected by the Fourth
Geneva Convention as Palestinians and Lebanese living in Beirut under Israeli
occupation. The IDF was in full control of Beirut when the massacres took place in the
refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila. Sharon had the camps encircled and sealed and sent
in Lebanese militia units, affiliated directly or indirectly with the Israeli backed christian
Lebanese forces, the Phalange, a militia with a history of hatred and indiscriminate
1 This paper was presented at the 'Al-Quds: City of Three Monotheistic Faiths' conference, organised
by the Institute of Islamic Studies at the Islamic Centre of England, London, UK in March 2003.
violence against Palestinians. They would cleanse the area of the 2,000 terrorists which
Sharon insisted were present in the camps. The IDF sealed off the refugee camps
refusing to allow terrified pleading camp residents to escape through the exits. What
ensued was a three day ordeal of relentless torture, rape and killing of between a
thousand to two thousand unarmed Lebenese and Palestinian civilians, mostly children,
women and the elderly. Hundreds more were arrested and disappeared. The IDF
supplied the flares that lit the way for the Phalange and provided a bulldozer to help
bury the bodies in a mass grave'
etc
http://www.ihrc.org.uk/file/03sep24thecaseagainstarielsharon.pdf

Obama genuflected to AIPAC and the Israel lobby, and that's all I needed to hear. I'm voting for Nader. Obama is proving that he's not all that different from McCain in fealty to Zionism. Nader is the candidate free from treason.

Obama is proving to be a slippery pig. He is becoming less trustworthy. Juwt remember that change begins at the bottom, not in Washington.