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US Fury as Israel Defies Settlement Freeze Call
Israel's latest peace initiative was only a few hours old when it ran into fierce opposition from the US and the Palestinians.
Israeli soldiers patrol the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Israel will approve the construction of hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements before weighing a freeze sought by Washington in a move that has fuelled Palestinian outrage.
(AFP/File/Hazem Bader) Ignoring pleas from the Obama administration that Israel should suspend all building work at Jewish settlements, officials unveiled a plan today authorising the construction of hundreds more houses on Palestinian soil.
In a nod to Washington, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, said he would then agree to a temporary freeze on settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The move came as a surprise to US and Palestinian officials involved in the negotiations leading to a new Middle East peace process. President Obama had hoped to launch formal talks between Palestinians and Israel later this month.
"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said. "As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge it to stop."
"In the end, America will be forced to do what is necessary to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table. But the Netanyahu Government has proven difficult to work with," said another US official.
Washington is pushing Mr Netanyahu to freeze all construction in the settlements, which have been a key impediment to the peace talks. But the Jewish settlements, built on land earmarked for a future Palestinian state, are fiercely supported by much of the right-wing constituency that elected Mr Netanyahu.
The new plan drawn up by Mr Netanyahu and outlined by officials close to him seeks to placate the right-wing elements of his coalition, while moving forward on conditions laid down by the Obama Administration.
It proposes that Israel would agree to a freeze of settlement building for up to nine months, excluding 2,500 housing units that are already under construction, and settlement projects in East Jerusalem. In exchange, Mr Netanyahu hopes that Arab states will begin to normalise ties with the Jewish state, allow Israel to open offices in Arab countries and grant overflight rights for Israeli aircraft.
Mr Netanyahu also plans to approve the construction of approximately 500 additional housing units, bringing the total number of units to 3,000, aides said. The proposal infuriated Palestinian negotiators who accused Israel of posturing for peace while attempting to "worm" more illegal construction into the deal.
"What the Israeli Government said is not useful. It is unacceptable for us. We want a freeze on all settlement construction," said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President. He reiterated that the entire Middle East peace process hinged on a freeze of all Israeli settlement construction.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, also slammed the move, stating that it was unacceptable and could threaten to detail progress made in the peace process.
Mr Abbas is under US pressure to accept Israel's conditions ahead of a summit being planned on the fringes of the UN General Assembly meeting between himself, Mr Netanyahu, and President Obama.
Washington's Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who is due in the region next week, has been pressing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to reach a basic understanding before the meeting, brokered by the US Administration. It appeared unlikely, however, that the US knew of Mr Netanyahu's plan to add an additional 500 housing units to those approved for construction.
Kurt Hoyer, spokesman for the US embassy in Tel Aviv, said that Washington would be unlikely to accept anything "contrary to the spirit of negotiations they've been undertaking", adding it was doubtful the US had signed off on the Israeli decision.
American officials have long been pushing for a settlement freeze, with one senior State Department official telling the Jerusalem Post newspaper that a nine-month halt to construction would be "long enough to be credible and for negotiations to proceed".
There has been a great deal of speculation regarding the concessions Mr Netanyahu is willing to make. In a landmark speech earlier this year, he declared for the first time that Palestinians should be granted an independent state.
Nevertheless, construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank has continued, albeit at a slower pace, since he took office. Government statistics released this week showed that Jewish construction in the settlements fell by one-third in the first half of 2009.
Palestinians hope to make Jerusalem their future capital, and the 1967 Green line, which roughly demarcates the border upon which the negotiations are being conducted, establishes east Jerusalem as part of a unified Palestinian State.
"Jerusalem is the one issue that Netanyahu will not compromise over. He has stressed this both publically and within the party," one MP in the Prime Minister's Likud party insisted.
Palestinians negotiators, however, say that a deal on Jerusalem is still within reach, and that they have made it clear to Israeli and US officials that no final peacen accord will be reached without a Palestinian stake in Jerusalem.
- Posted in
90 Comments so far
Show AllIt's hardly fury from the yanks, after all they've not cut off the Israelis from the military funding. Nor have they threatened to do so.
The only surprise is that anyone in the us gov't expected Israel to stop the expansion of the settlements. (if they really expected such a thing in the first place.)
Well put. The US government confuses sophistry with sophistication and then calls it wisdom instead of hypocricy.
I agree with Saturnalia. The "furor" is feigned. Yes, once again the US can claim they tried in good faith to "move forward" on the issue, but the two parties proved intractable. This whole show has been re-played many times over the past decades, and it is getting boring.
If the Empire was serious about rebuking Israel it would call for sanctions at the UNSC and cut off the billions in aid, loans, free weapons etc. However we know that Israel serves imperial interests in the region and the US provides protection and cover from international law and the UN as well as finance. It is an imperialist synergistic relationship.
I agree this is a staged dance but think down the road Netanyahu will be "forced" to put a freeze on settlements. This will be very well promoted and publicized. It will be presented as a huge victory for Obama and sacrifice by Netanyahu leading to increased demands for full recognition by other Arab states and further capitulation by Abbas/Erekat.
Zionists and their international supporters (in Europe as well as the US) have changed the issue from settlement withdrawal to settlement freeze. Huge difference.
I believe it important to keep focus where it belongs: Israeli occupation and apartheid and US support of this.
Israel is one pissed off US Administration away from losing $billions in annual aid, and political cover in the UN. Obama could issue Presidential Directives that make Israel become a Rogue State, and lose most of it's economy and military support.
You don't think little Bibi understands how Israel is dependent on the U.S. ? He lived in Minneapolis and studied in Boston. 5.5 million Jews in the desert surrounded by oil-rich Arabs will not fare well without U.S. support, especially if the U.S. discontinues the practice of allowing dual Israeli/U.S. citizenship - that would kick out thousands of Israeli supporters from the State Department and Pentagon. The question is, does Bibi believe Obama has the balls to crush him ? It's not a question of 'can he'.
Once Peak Oil hits, the Congress won't be so knee-jerk stand-and-salute-Israel. Campaign funds are one thing, national survival is another. In times of crisis, lesser allies are thrown under the bus.
I hear they invade countries that disobey UN Security Council resolutions...
[The question is, does Bibi believe Obama has the balls to crush him ? It's not a question of 'can he'.]
Judging that by his performance on the health care reform debate... No, Obama has no balls. It's a damn shame too. Note, I'll withdraw my opinion about his Eunuch if he goes on tv and tells the usa the the health reform has failed, and as a result he's just going to expand medicare to cover everyone...
Cut the funds! Genocide, Regional Aggression, Organ Harvesting and general Intransigence have long lost Israel any legitimacy as a state. We need to stop propping them up, give at least half of what we normally send them to the Palestine Authority and spend the rest of domestic health care (single payer) and infrastructure.
Jaded Prole "Organ Harvesting"
If you start with anti-semic fairy tale blood libel, why don't you add that Jews uses the blood of Christian children to bake Passover matza bread?
Letto - actually, there are witnesses - doctors, there is evidence, there are records of organ harvesting taking place - in fact, a whole group of New Yorkers were involved, as well, if I remember the news stories correctly. The stories were on this site, on alternet, and/or on counterpunch just last week. And some rabbis were arrested in connection with some kind of ring, in NY.
Here's a quote:
"August 31, 2009
Story Puts Israeli Government in Frenzied Denial Mode
Israeli Bodysnatchers
By BOUTHAINA SHAABAN
The investigative report written by Swedish journalist Donald Boström and published in Sweden’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet about Israeli occupation forces killing Palestinians with the objective of stealing their organs has raised a political and media storm in Israel, disclosing up a horrible crime perpetrated for years under the full gaze of the ‘free’ world. These criminal acts began in 1992 when Palestinians started to witness a sharp rise in the number of young Palestinians disappearing and of bodies of Palestinians killed by occupation forces being returned with organs such as hearts, kidneys, livers and eyes missing.
“I was in the area at the time, working on a book”, Boström writes. “On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it…. I travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed."
It's not antisemitism to tell a Jew to stop doing something bad. It happens in India, as well - would it be anti-Indian to say it's wrong to kidnap people and steal their organs? (I wonder how a Brahmin would feel about owning a Dalet kidney.)
Boy o boy have you ever eroded the value of that antisemitism card! It means nothing anymore, except that you just pissed off a Jew or a xian fundie.
redballoon: "Swedish journalist Donald Boström and published in Sweden’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet about Israeli occupation forces killing Palestinians with the objective of stealing their organs"
This is an urban myth. From the link I published below on blood libel: "The author of the Aftonbladet article Donald Bostrom, readily admitted that he has no proof the accusations are true and the Palestinians he quoted in his article have since denied making those accusations"
My question remains, in what way does an unsupported claim that Israelis are killing Palestinians for Organ harvesting is different from the Middle-Ages blood libel that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for Matza bread?
Why the first is not anti-semitism and the second is?
Here is the Wikipedia entry on blood libel
The Swedish newspaper you were so proud to quote has gained an entire paragraph as an example of modern blood libel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
I agree with you it's not anti-Semitism to tell a Jew to stop doing something bad (If they did it). But Jews didn't kill Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.
Is it not racism to invent fairy tales, without any evidence, for the sole purpose inciting hatred against a specific ethnic group? (Jews or non-Jews?)
]I agree with you it's not anti-Semitism to tell a Jew to stop doing something bad (If they did it). But Jews didn't kill Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.]
No, you're quite right. That story is a bit too screwy to be believable. Even if people thought about doing it, you'd never be able to use the harvested organs in any transplant. By the time you got the dead body to the hospital to remove the organs they'd not be in any condition to use them for transplantation.
I'm not sure if it's really a blood libel type of story. It's a bit more ghoulish than that isn't it?
Yo, guys! Our friend, Letto, is a paid troll for Israel. See below:
"Hasbara spam alert"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/israel-foreign-ministry-media
I thought they were volunteers. Doesn't matter about that, really. The organ story was not a credible one, it was published in a paper that has its equivalent in the 'news of the world' or the 'national enquirer' it's a trashy tabloid.
Not everything a troll says is wrong, just most of it as is the case with Letto and Mikep.
I'm not calling you names, Saturnalia. So why do you join Trailing Begonia in name calling? (troll)
Trailing Begonia has no evidence that I'm paid to post here. (And I’m not) He is no better than Donald Boström, who published the modern blood libel in the Swedish tabliod.
Letto, the reason you're a troll in my opinion is that you only post on one topic, and when you post, you always say the same thing. You don't argue, you pontificate.
OK, so call me names if that make you happy. Just don't overdo it. It's not nice.
Trailing Begonia: "Yo, guys! Our friend, Letto, is a paid troll for Israel. See below: "Hasbara spam alert""
Propaganda alert:
Whenever the very oiled (petro-oil) anti-Israeli propaganda machine encounters someone who dare meeting their falsehood with truth – instead of trying to disprove the information, they invoke the old lie “He is a paid troll.”
What are you trying to say, Trailing Begonia. That Israel is killing Palestinians for the purpose of harvesting organs? That Israel is the 3rd largest arms exporter, and not the 11th? That the West Bank was occupied in 1967 from the state of Palestine and not from Jordan? That Jews never lived in the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem or Hebron or other places in the West bank before 1948?
If you think I’m wrong, if you think my data is a lie - face it with contradicting data. Don’t protect these lies by bringing another lie (Falsely accusing me of being a paid troll.)
Wikipedia is not a source! Please provide a real source or you are just a liar yourself.
Horrified "Wikipedia is not a source! Please provide a real source or you are just a liar yourself."
Are you saying that anyone who posts a link from Wikipedia automatically becomes a liar?
Is that true for anyone who ever posts somting from Wikipedia? That’s an awkward statement.
I found Wikipedia to be more accurate than any privatly held or government controlled media (more than CNN, Fox, MSN etc.) If someone posts a blunt lie in Wikipedia, it will be discovered and fixed.
Power to the people.
I agree that wikipedia is generally reliable. I've written an article for it myself. There are people who tamper (edit) political stories with a view to pushing their own propaganda. but there are so many sources on the net, that any story can easily be checked.
With that in mind, I do trust a journalist by the name of Jonathan Cook, whose work frequently appears here, but more often on counterpunch.org. He also currently has an article on organ harvesting on that site:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09042009.html
check it - he also provides a number of other links you can search for accuracy on this story.
The NY rabbi organ-harvesting ring was reported by American news sources, paper and digital.
Look, apparently there is no limit to the depths of evil the human spirit can attain (Indian organ harvesting in mind). I don't know whether to be dismayed or comforted about Jews' capability to reach those same depths. I suppose I'm kind of disappointed, as I've always held Jews in high regard for their creativity and humanism. I guess the Leon Uris dream had to end sometime...
Jews are humans like any other human. (For better and for worse)
The story about the Rabbis who were arrested in N.Y for trading organs is true. However, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is the claim about Israelis killing Palestinians for Organ harvesting in the West Bank. It’s a red herring. Connection by association. Jew X did something bad, let’s blame Jew Y for doing something similar, but worse, even though we have no evidence.
I've read the report by Jonathan Cook. He said, and I'm quoting: "I have no idea whether the story is true."
On the same token, he could have said that he has no idea if the Middle-Ages blood libel is true.
I'll ask again (for the third time). In what way the unsupported claim by the Swedish tabloid (That Israeli soldiers intentionally killed Palestinian for Organ harvesting) is different from the Middle-Ages unsupported claim that Jews backed Matza bread with the blood of Christian children?
None of these cases have any reliable evidence. Both cases were told by people who had strong sentiment against the accused.
"Jews are humans like any other human. (For better and for worse)"
seems like the worst is showing more than their good. It is on full display for the world to see. The handiwork of the zionist jews.
Perhaps you did not read far enough. The article under discussion also states: "Of even greater concern for the Palestinian families is the fact that at around the time the bodies of their loved ones were whisked off by the army for autopsy, the only institute in Israel that conducts such autopsies, Abu Kabir, near Tel Aviv, was almost certainly at the centre of a trade in organs that later became a scandal inside Israel.
Equally disturbing, the doctor behind the plunder of body parts, Prof Yehuda Hiss, appointed director of the Abu Kabir institute in the late 1980s, has never been jailed despite admitting to the organ theft and he continues to be the state’s chief pathologist at the institute.
Hiss was in charge of the autopsies of Palestinians when Bostrom was listening to the families’ claims in 1992. Hiss was subsequently investigated twice, in 2002 and 2005, over the theft of body parts on a large scale.
Allegations of Hiss’ illegal trade in organs was first revealed in 2000 by investigative reporters at the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, which reported that he had “price listings” for body parts and that he sold mainly to Israeli universities and medical schools. [6]
Apparently undeterred by these revelations, Hiss still had an array of body parts in his possession at Abu Kabir when the Israeli courts ordered a search in 2002. Israel National News reported at the time: “Over the past years, heads of the institute appear to have given thousands of organs for research without permission, while maintaining a ‘storehouse’ of organs at Abu Kabir.” [7]"
.....
I do think that these allegations need to be addressed properly and openly if they are to be allayed. It may be that a number of unrelated but similar stories have been conflated, creating a monstrous kind of myth. Avoiding dealing with this is going to make the myth, if that's what it is, grow out of scale.
If it all turns out to be lies, I'll welcome the truth, whomever it exonerates...honestly.
OK, you've brought some past suspicions that organ trading possibly existed in Israel. And perhaps some Doctors, such as Yehuda Hiss were involved. But that's not what the Swedish tabloid article was about. They didn't raise suspicions that organ trading exists.
The Swedish tabloid claim that Israeli soldiers intentionally killed Palestinians for the purpose of harvesting organs. That's light-years away. That's first degree murder.
You seem to avoid my question. The one about the intentional killing. So I'll ask it for the fourth time. In what way does an unsupported claim that Israelis are killing Palestinians for organ harvesting is different from the Middle-Ages blood libel that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for Matza bread?
[Jews uses the blood of Christian children to bake Passover matza bread?]
I don't think that would taste very good. Besides, it's supposed to be flour and water only, the addition of blood would make the bread leaven.
Mind you, if you do have recipes that call for the blood of xtian children, I've got these neighbours that are the most vile sort of xtian fundy.... I'm not Jewish, but that shouldn't matter should it?
Why is it that a book called 'the Anarchist's cookbook' can be printed, but I've never found one called 'the Cannibals cookbook'?
Letto:
Ahem...I guess you haven't noticed by now that crying anti-semitism and holocust around here, ain't quite as effective as it is with the US government. Bomber, eh?
BTW, how much is Israel paying ya for trolling, huh?
Unfortunately, when someone repeats his lies enough times, some people believe him.
Stop spreading lies about me, Trailing Begonia. I'm not being paid to pose here.
If you have issues with the data I published here, CD supports your freedom of speech. Feel free to disprove it.
If you know me, and you have evidence that proves I’m being paid to post here, show us your proof. (I know you can’t since I’m not being paid to post here.)
EVERYTHING about the empire is FAKE.
Our money goes to build houses illegally for Israelis on Palestinian soil - our money goes to bailout banks and insurance giants who purposefully refuse to enter into refinancing with home buyers. Corrupt in so many ways.
..and I'd add, Americans still live in shacks, in tents, under bridges; the evacuees from the Big Easy are still homeless. So many Americans disenfranchised, ripped off by their own system. And the "Settlers" have swimming pools and air conditioning. The "Settlers" are the most effective/successful weapon in the expansionist war.
Our money goes to build houses illegally for Israelis on Palestinian soil - our money goes to bailout banks and insurance giants who purposefully refuse to enter into refinancing with home buyers. Corrupt in so many ways.
It's well past the time to put this arrogant apartheid flyspeck of a nation in its place!!
"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said. "As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge it to stop."
____________________________________
Talk about "shock and awe"! This demonstration of "US Fury" practically burned off my eyebrows!
If THIS dragon bellow doesn't flame the Israelis into doing the right thing, be prepared for additional US verbal nuclear strikes, e.g., "If Israel doesn't agree to consider suspending their projected settlement-building after 2010, the US government is gonna be really, REALLY mad!"
· Yr Obd't Servant
Doe Israel really want a peace process satisfactory to BOTH sides? If not are we ready to stop sending aid to Israel?
We have let Israel continue to over power the Palestinians for 60 years, and fed into their arrorance, and it's about time all nations boycotted Israel, and forced them to give back what they took. I wonder if the Israeli's are holding something over our heads from the Bush administration????
You mean, you don't know, Maddy? Here ya go!
Israeli Spying in the United States
http://www.counterpunch.org/ketcham03122009.html
This is for starters, the list goes on and on and on...
Its time to draw the line. Cut military assistance until the settlements stop and East Jerusalem is Palestinian. Turn Biden's green light on bombing Iran red, too. Armed war planes in international air space, or over foreign sovereign territory, and obviously about to commit an act of war will be shot down.
It won't be easy. Huckabee had a nice folksy explanation, on his Fox News show a couple weeks ago, about why Jerusalem shouldn't be divided. There is probably more of that coming.
from the article: " But the Netanyahu Government has proven difficult to work with," said another US official."
no shitsky
there has never been a peace process and there isn't one now. there is just the pogrom against palestine paid for and enabled by american money and weapons
we are outraged - about what - that the zion government is as mad and war crazed as we are. as insatiable as we are in their thirst for land and power. that they are as ready to kill as we are
what the israelis are doing is what we did - came to a foreign land and killed off the indigenous peoples
sure worked for us
nativetongue: we all have long memories, that is part of the problem
elephants do as well
hatred will not guide you
it will not light your path
it will not comfort you
it will not make your children strong
nativetongue only love and kindness will do that
.
Now is the time to cut all tie to the State of Israel.....
End ALL U.S. Tax payers' Tax Dollars to Israel, and end ALL U.S. Military Aid Programs.
The U.S. has never had the aid of ONE ISRAELI MILITARY BATTALION......for sixty plus years the U.S. has funded over twelve trillion tax dollars to the State of Israel.
We get only lies and disrespect.......Who has ripped-off the U.S. Taxpayers.......Israel
By association we have been allied with these WAR CRIMINALS.
CUT ALL TIES TO ISRAEL ,,,,,,,,,,,,NOW
.
Bring America Back !!!!........!...May I second your motion JAM4.
****It is much more than just "by association" JAM4, it is downright official
USA Policy stated by mouth of Obama====Israel's interests are US interests !!
***It is the dogs of Zion that wag the tail of the USA !!!
***If you have not already, may I recommend a book "Those Who Dare To Speak Out" by former congressman Paul Findley....as true today as it ever was, but WORSE !!
Unfortunately, JAM4, this would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The US has forfeited its right to moral authority by arming the world, unjustly treating and threatening Middle Eastern people and grabbing the property of others itself. By aiding and supporting Israel and asking little in return, we have been Israel's enabler. By turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, the United States is complicit in Israel's crimes.
During one of my 7 trips to oPt, Mohammad Alatar, film producer of "The Iron Wall" informed me:
"I am a Muslim Palestinian American and when my son asked me who my hero was I took three days to think about it. I told him my hero is Jesus, because he took a stand and he died for it.
"What really needs to be done is for the churches to be like Jesus; to challenge the Israeli occupation and address the apartheid practices as moral issues.
"Even if every church divested and boycotted Israel it would not harm Israel. After the USA and Russia, Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world. It is a moral issue that the churches must address."
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1379&Itemid=223
On Sept. 3, 2009: The World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee "called on the Israeli government to freeze and begin to dismantle settlements in occupied Palestinian territories...
The committee considered some 200 settlements with more than 450,000 settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories to be “illegal, unjust, incompatible with peace and antithetical to the legitimate interests of the state of Israel”.
The statement “reiterates the need for an international boycott of settlement products and services”.
WCC member churches “must not be complicit in illegal activities on occupied territory” and therefore should “practice morally responsible investment in order to influence businesses linked to the Israeli occupation and its illegal settlements”, the statement says.
The illegal settlements “and their corresponding infrastructure including the separation wall” have dire consequences on the life and dignity of Palestinian people, the WCC statement says.
Settlements deny Palestinians access to “land and water resources”, “restrict their freedom of movement, diminish their basic human dignity and, in many cases, their right to life”, impede their “right to education and access to health care”, and “destroy the Palestinian economy”. In these ways they increase “the sense of dispossession and despair”.
In addition to that, “illegal settlements in and around Jerusalem endanger the future of the holy city”, which “should be open to all and shared by the two peoples and the three religions”.
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1388&Itemid=224
“After the USA and Russia, Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world.”
Not true. Israel is #11 arms exporter after USA, Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine, Netherlands, UK, South Korea, Italy and Sweden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry
Also, unlike the WCC’s claim, that the West Bank is a Palestinian Occupied territory, the truth is that Israel occupied that territory from Jordan in 1967. At most, they should say “Jordanian Occupied territory.”
Another fact – Jews had been living in the West Bank for thousands of years. In modern history, the only time the West Bank was ethnically clean of Jews was between 1948 and 1967.
Are you saying that the West bank should be clean of Jews till the end of time just because Jews were forced out for 19 years?
Would you equally say that Palestinians should not live in Israel proper?
"That commenter on your blog may actually be working for the Israeli government"
http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2009/07/14/that-angry-commenter-on-your-blog-may-actually-be-working-for-the-israeli-government/
I'm just wondering how much you're getting paid Letto, huh?
I'm paid billions upon billions for posting here. How much are you being paid, Trailing Begonia?
I think that your 'posting' should be used as a 'teaching tool'.
Having been a teacher for over twenty years, I am most familiar with the impact and power of a 'negative' example.
The amazing thing about this posting is that you quote all of the sources that have made the most negative influence on the matter.
You obviously believe in "God" and his "Son" Jesus, and you use the WCC as a reference for what you believe is a 'fair and honest' approach to a problem that YOUR religion is directly responsible for creating.
For all of the Christians, Jews, and Muslims who have for slightly over two thousand years been shedding 'oceans' of innocent blood over the right to dominate one small plot of land that you all so foolishly call 'holy'. I would think that you could think of another 'approach'.
Being a member of the 'small group' of humans that does not believe in "GOD", and coming from a 'people' who did quite well 'all by our selves' here in the Americas before you 'believers' brought us 'salvation' (and at such a heavy cost) I am compelled to mention this one 'rather small point'.
If all of you Jews Christians and Muslims, have not been able to 'solve the problem' of the 'holy city' with all of the violence and bloodshed, along with incalculable riches you have 'pissed away' over the two millennia. It would seem that you would finally 'smarten up' and 'just let "GOD" 'handle it'. I mean, what is the point in giving so much to a "GOD" that obviously needs so much 'help' from so many humans---who can't seem to solve their own problems---much less "GOD's" many problems. I would worry about giving my loyalty, prayers and money' to a "GOD" that seems to be blind, deaf and some what mentally retarded---or just does not give a damn about what is done in 'his name' to so many innocent; especially the children who have not one single say in any of the mess you 'believers' have made of your planet.
The negative example here is quite obvious. Your "GOD" cannot possible give a damn about all of this fighting bloodshed and violence done in his name; or he is a real 'sick shit' for letting it happen: or HE DOES NOT EXIST AL ALL----EXCEPT IN THE SMALL MINDS OF FOOLS LIKE YOU-----------------
I 'deeply believe' that the sooner you 'believers' die off, whether at your own hands---(or if you insist),that mean vindictive God of yours hands---the better off the rest of the life forms on the planet will be; including those of us who do not 'believe'-------------
Good luck to all of you 'believers'----you really need it.
Or you could explain peoples infatuation with an afterlife like this:
“Albert Camus, French Existentialist, proclaimed man as absurd..as a contradiction, given that on the one hand, there is no meaning, and yet, man cannot psychologically maintain his sanity without insisting that there is meaning.”
frank scott
"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said.
oh my god...such fury! all of israel must be laughing hysterically...this administration may be more worthless than any other on this issue...israel is in the oval office itself and even pat buchanan, an establishment figure, can't speak freely...this country is in worse shape than it has ever been and when we need bold leadership, we get this pathetic hybrid...disgraceful
I'd loooooooove to see what Obama is going to do about this. Somehow, I seriously doubt that he will considering stopping the 3.2 bil taxpayer dollars the US gifts to Israel just for being the Chosen People...