Jimmy Carter: "I think the big change is that the Israeli leaders have decided to abandon the two-state solution. Their policy now is to confiscate Palestinian territory."
Former president Jimmy Carter listens during the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago, Illinois, April 23, 2012. (photo: Jeff Haynes/Reuters)
Jimmy Carter: 'Israeli Policy Is to Confiscate Palestinian Territory'
20 November 12
srael and Gaza are again attacking each other, Syria is descending into civil war, four American diplomats killed in Libya: the Middle East is more fragile than ever. "Both sides should cease all hostilities," says former US President Jimmy Carter. "Israel should end its blockade of Gaza, and Western countries should work to facilitate reconciliation between Hamas and their Palestinian rival, Fatah. As long as Gaza remains isolated, the situation in and around Gaza will remain volatile."
Israel's leaders don't want a Palestinian state, Carter tells Metro in an exclusive interview with Metro. Carter, who still conducts international negotiations and is now a member The Elders, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. He just returned from a visit to the Middle East.
The chances of a Palestinian state are fading. Whose job is it to fix this situation?
The peace process has been pretty well dormant for the past three years. Of course, in the past we played a key role in being the mediator and conveyer of meetings, but that's not happening either. The first priority would be for the Israelis and Palestinians to take the initiative. But the Israelis have continued with their massive settlement program in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians say they won't negotiate as long as Israel is continuing to take over their territory, so there's deadlock. The United States is looked upon by the rest of the international community as the primary interlocutor, so the European Union members don't take action. As a result, there's no intermediary who can move things forward and initiate peace talks.
President Obama says he supports a Palestinian state, but even so there's a deadlock. Does it take even more than the support of a US President to get a Palestinian state?
I think the big change is that the Israeli leaders have decided to abandon the two-state solution. Their policy now is to confiscate Palestinian territory, and they've announced publicly that it the Palestinians have to recognize not just Israel but Israel as a Jewish state, even though 20% of the Israeli community are non-Jews. Netanyahu has also decided that even the Jordan valley has to be under Israeli control. So, those factors indicate quite clearly that Netanyahu has decided that the two-state solution is not what he wants. He wants what is being called Greater Israel, Eretz Israel. That's a new development, and I think everyone recognizes this.
The Arab Spring had worldwide support. Now four diplomats have been killed and the region is considered less safe. Are dictators sometimes better than democracy?
A: I don't think so at all. For example, the Egyptian people had a very safe series of elections. As the Carter Center, we monitored several of these elections, and have also monitored the elections in Tunisia and Libya. I don't think there's any doubt that the termination of the dictators has been a major beneficial development. The outside world just tends to be too impatient. The United States declared our independence from Britain in 1776, and it wasn't until 12 years later that we had a constitution. Egypt is going to have a constitution within a year of the President assuming power.
So we're simply too worried about Islamists?
Look at the Muslim Brotherhood. I've known the Muslim Brotherhood leaders for 20 years. They were persecuted by the Mubarak government, imprisoned and so forth, and now they've gone to the people in an honest, fair and safe election. And, of course, they've prevailed because their candidate became President and they have a majority in Parliament. But they're a very moderate group of Islamists, whereas salafists and others are much more radical, at least judging with Western criteria.
The YouTube video defaming Islam caused attacks and huge protests in the Arab world, including possibly the killing of the four American diplomats in Libya. Who's to blame? Is there too much freedom of speech in the US, or are Muslims too sensitive?
First of all, all the evidence now shows that the killings of the four American diplomats in Libya weren't caused by the film but was instead a planned attack by al Qaeda. In the US, Britain, Norway, Sweden and other countries in the West we believe in the right of expression. Western leaders are often criticized in scandalous ways in paintings, words and sculptures, and that criticism is accepted as legitimate. But we deplore when there's a scandalous statement like the ones made in that YouTube film. We regret that it has caused pain to believers in the Islamic faith, but it happens to our own faith as well. But freedom of speech includes freedom of blasphemy.
But isn't it frightening in itself that a deranged YouTube video posted by an obscure individual can undo years of diplomacy?
Yes, it is frightening. I'm a Christian; I teach Bible school every Sunday. I've heard and seen statements made about my own faith that cause me pain. But I don't want the blasphemous person who made the statements put in jail. Yes, it's painful to see the reaction in the Arab world, but I think we have to anticipate it. People in the non-Muslim world who deliberately do this in order to cause Muslims pain underestimate the violence that can erupt from aggrieved Muslims. It's painful and unfortunate, but when you have to choose between that kind of pain and the right of freedom to voice your opinions we come down on the side of freedom.
Speaking of your faith: how do you view the growing role of religion in politics? In my country, of course, there's a rigid separation of church and state, and our Constitution prohibits religious faith being endorsed by the government. But we have to understand that the governments in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan and other fairly moderate states are based on sharia law. Then there are some places in certain parts of Sudan, for example, that enforce sharia law with extreme rigidity, like cutting off people's hands and or stoning people to death for adultery. Extreme implementation of sharia law is very bad, but look at Egypt: their constitution says that the principles of sharia law should apply. That's something that we adopt in the United States as well: our money says "in God we trust". We believe in the basic principles of God, and at the same time you can be an atheist if you choose. But in some Muslim countries, if someone says something derogatory about Islam, they can be convicted of blasphemy. That's obviously obnoxious to a Western observer. But each country has a right - depending on whom the voters elect in democratic elections - to impose or not impose the principles of religious law like the sharia.
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But oligarchy/money controlled mass media killed the democracy and elected Reagan.
Not really. That was the goal of a faction of Zionists during a period of history, but it is not Israeli policy. The territorial goals are more modest - and realistic - than that. Look at the pattern of colonization of the OPT, and you can get a very good idea of what they are aiming for.
Oh yes, and they will probably also try to hold onto the Lebanese territory known as Sheb`a Farms.
Whether their goal is expansion is not in question. Their goal is and always has been expansion. What is in question is the definition of Eretz Israel. Those who have defined it as the territory from the Nile to the Euphrates have always been in the minority, and now they are only a tiny minority.
Ben Gurion told the world that Israel accepted the partition and the Arabs rejected it. Then Israel took half of the land that was promised to the Arab state. And still he was saying it was not enough. Israel needed more land. How can a country make peace with its neighbors if it wants to take their land? How can a country demand to be secure if it won't say what borders it will be satisfied with? For such a country, peace would be an inconvenience."
Israel has NEVER intended to negotiate peace and has from its inception done all that it could to scuttle peace talks whether with false suicide bombers or a fake attack...they excel at that.
yes -
ifamericansknew.org/about_us/4maps.html
It has become unrecognizable. Committing morally corrupt offenses I never thought I would see, given the treatment of Jews by Germany.
It is a myth that Israel began as a moral, ethical country and has somehow changed into what it is today. Israel's was created using deception, terrorism against both British and Palestinians, and massive ethnic cleansing.
The only things that have really changed is that Israel has become more brazen in the commission of its crimes, and at the same time modern-day communication has made it increasingly difficult for Israel to conceal its deeds from the world.
In that sense Israel is the aggressor. I'm no longer an Israel supporter.
The main indigenous ethno-linguisti c minorities in Japan are the Ainu and the Ryukyuan.
China has tens of indigenous ethno-linguisti c minorities - too many to list here. They include Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uyghur, Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Buyei, Dong, Yao, Bai, Kazakh, and Dai.
Not confusing the two, we should all be Jew supporters. If it isn't practical to give them West Texas, for their own state, the world can provide a parcel of land, suitable for growing, thriving and living in a unanomously agreed upon peace. If it means Moving chunks of the "Wall", fine, anything to end this terrible war that causes suffering on all sides. Let's get real!
What rubbish it is to compare these two things.
The world cannot live with activist sharia law muslims deciding to judge everyone else based on what they think the koran says.
israel cannot make peace with the palestinians, the palestinians will not let them. the forces behind the palestinians will not let them.
just as israel is held hostage to continuing violence so are the palestinians. they are not a people, they are a group imprisons by circumstances that cannot exercise the self-control to do what they would need to do to be a nation, and there is little chance they ever will be able to.
if palestine became a nation it would just give legitimacy to terrorism and sovereignty to war and it will never end.
plus what kind of a state has two tiny islands in the middle of another state that it fights to destroy? look at it with fresh eyes, it is ridiculous.
i think israel has tried enough. israel has been attacked enough. time to see the palestinians for what they are, a poor, oppressed people stuck in a situation that will never get any better as long as the status quo remains, and the status quo cannot change because those who back the radicals in palestine are too powerful and untouchable.
You're in strange company.
Incidentally how would you feel if the US lost a war and was forced to agree to a north south corridor running through the middle of the country because Canada which was not involved in hostilities just happened to demand a port on the Gulf of Mexico.
Everyone and his dog knows what followed - German aggression against Poland leading to a war which engulfed most of the world. The aggression accompanied by whining propaganda about Bolshevism but directed to Lebensraum - ethnic cleansing by jackals of a vast swathe of territory and replacement for settlement by their compatriots in an operation which dwarfed manyfold both in scope and in mass murderous viciousness the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Treacherously Stalin dickered with them and the democracies appeased them but it all came unstuck and ended with their country (and many others) reduced to rubble and the ringleaders swinging from rope at Nuremberg.
For a single picture showing the Nazi crime see http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005164&MediaId=363
I've checked my post and couldn't find my reference to the Russians trying to spread democracy in Spain or anywhere else. Was it printed in invisible ink? The Russians were acting on geostrategic imperatives: the jackals were howling for a Drang nach Osten seeking Lebensraum in Poland, Byelorussia, Ukraine and Russia, the democracies were appeasing them.
The Drang started on 01.09.39, Poland was overwhelmed, the government fled to Roumania and THEN the Russians moved to secure their own borders in the Baltic and at a line in Poland that had been agreed in a defensive though shabby deal with the Nazi criminals.
The Russians committed the Katyn and many other murders. Nazi officers were charged with it at Nuremberg but the charges were dismissed as the court didn't buy the "Nazis did it" story about murders that took place long before the Nazis even got there. There is an unconfirmed story that some Nazi invaders were framed and executed for it in Leningrad.
German forces were part of the suppression of democratic rule in Spain and then in a large number of countries it attacked. These were despicable crimes and everyone who was part of them or egged them on were criminals. Making postwar excuses for them is sinister.
When it's Drang nach Osten it's a crime but when it's sending terrorists into Spain to bump off the clergy and other civilians before WWII even started useful idiots (Lenin's words)character ize it as "acting on geostrategic imperatives". The communists always justify their crimes for a higher good including mass murder, how convenient.
The Russians occupied the Baltics and Eastern Poland. Stalin murdered the Polish intelligensia and the clergy to turn Poland into another workers paradise. He deported large numbers of the Baltic population to Siberia. He then settled Russians in these countries. Estonia is a prime example. Today it's known as ethnic cleansing. You really ought to talk to some East Europeans before making statements about securing borders. BTW what was Stalin doing in Greece supporting a communist insurgency during the civil war after WWII? "Securing borders", bringing democracy to Greece, or "acting on geostrategic imperatives". Take your pick. As to the trial of the Germans for Katyn it is well documented but suppressed in the West. It took place in Leningrad Nov. '45 after a failed attempt at Nuremberg. The German military men who were accused and executed were K.H. Strueffling, H.Remlinger, E. Bohom, E. Sommerfeld, H. Jannike, E. Skotki and E. Geherer.
E.P. Vogel, F. Wiese, and A. Diere received 20 year sentences and subsequently disappeared in Stalin's death camps.
If the Nazis hadn't airlifted Franco's fascist thugs into Spain and joined his rebellion there would have been no pretext for the subsequent Soviet entry there, and if the vermin hadn't already launched aggression there would have been no reason or pretext for the Russians to occupy Poland or any other country.
There were two key objectives for the Nazi Drang nach Osten - (1) Lebensraum and (2) killing off the Jews. Saving the world from Stalin was never an objective either in the extensively documented planning or in Hitler's public mouthing off. That objective is a post-war Nazi invention to justify their crimes, as Lebensraum and Judenfrei earn near-universal hostility.
This off-topic thread has never involved more than two people and the on-topic issues are down to one or two so it's over and out.
The bottom line is, Russian military historian Mikhail Meltyukhov (Stalin's Missed Chance) gave support to the claim that Soviet forces were concentrating in order to attack Germany in 1941. Other historians who support this thesis are Vladimir Nevezhin, Boris Sokolov, Valeri Danilov, Joachim Hoffmann and Mark Solonin. Offensive interpretation of Stalin's prewar planning is also supported by Sovietologist Robert C. Tucker and Pavel Bobylev. Moreover, it is argued by Hoffmann that the actual Soviet troop concentrations, fuel depots, and air fields were near the German Russian border, all of which points to an imminent Russian offensive.
I wonder how Jewish settlers would react if they were rounded up (or shot), put in a camp and then watched as their olive and orange groves were destroyed so that Palastinians could build condos?
Israel has been the aggressor, overtly and covertly, for 62 years, sabotaging every opportunity for peace and assassinating its own Prime Minister when he sought peace.
For another perspective on that period check out Hanan Ashrawi's book This Side of Peace.
Islam's mission since the 7th century has focused on removing Jew presence on Abrahamic covenant land predating Islam by some 2500 years. Genesis 12 verses 1-7 was ignored by Muhammadanism from the beginning.
Peace or no peace in the region of Jerusalem is not in the hand of any politician. Whether meddlers in the affairs of Israel are self-serving or truly honest brokers, the Hebrew book contains many warnings of consequences to individuals or sovereign states with the hubris to breach the Abrahamic covenant.
Any American President, or sage of the hour such as Juan Cole or Noam Chomsky seeking to adjust Israel's borders, is simply far beneath pay grade on this challenge. Meddling results in adverse effects spilling over which directly affect countries or individuals stepping in where Angels fear to tread.
Islamic men of letters would do their faith & peoples the greatest favor by honest understanding of prophetic warnings against stepping over clear lines described by Biblical Prophecy. Scripture describes ultimate destruction for Islam if they do not repent of this satanic mission to destroy Israel.
Palestinians are a stalking horse for militant Islam.
"Islam's mission since the 7th century has focused on removing Jew presence..."
The phrase "Islam's mission" is completely nonsensical. Islam is a set of beliefs, and by definition cannot have missions. It is contra-factual to speak of mission by the Muslim world to "remove Jew presence". If anything, the opposite is true.
"...ignored by Muhammadanism from the beginning."
Muhammadanism?! Seriously, what century and what world do you inhabit?
"the Hebrew book contains many warnings of consequences to individuals or sovereign states with the hubris to breach the Abrahamic covenant."
You've got some real historical deficits. When the "Hebrew book" was written the concept of sovereign states did not exist. There cannot have been warnings to non-existent entities.
"Meddling results in adverse effects spilling over which directly affect countries or individuals stepping in where Angels fear to tread."
Huh?! This is a word salad, not a sentence.
"Scripture describes ultimate destruction for Islam if they do not repent of this satanic mission to destroy Israel."
Since the Scripture in question was written thousands of years before Islam, or even Christianity, it is difficult to see how it can describe the destruction of either one of them.
"Palestinians are a stalking horse for militant Islam."
Does that include the Christian, Mandaean, and secular Palestinians, or just the "Muhammadanist" ones?
No ethnic group, real or "me-too" fake, is more "special" than any other part of the human population, and claims that any - any at all - is so is a hostile affront to the rest of the world - plus, as we have seen, a vehicle for racist land theft and a threat to the peace of the world.
That's bad news for the bogeyman purveyors. Jews were safer in the Muslim Empire than anywhere in the worlds pogroms,massacr es and Inquisitions!
There are also some old synagogues in Iraq, which had a very large, and very important Jewish community that dates back to the Bablylonian exile.
It is, of course, a fact that Jews were far better off in the Muslim world than they were in the Christian world, and many of them fled Europe for the Muslim world as a result of the Inquisition. In addition, some of the most important figures in science, art, philosophy, and medicine during the Muslim empire were Jews. In Islam Jews are considered protected persons because like Muslims they worship the God of Abraham.
The world's leading authorities on the Talmud confirm that the official unabridged Soncino Edition of the Talmud translated into English follows the original texts with great exactness. It is almost a word-for-word translation of the original texts. In his famous classic "The History of the Talmud," Michael Rodkinson, the leading authority on the Talmud, in collaboration with the celebrated Reverend Dr. Isaac M. Wise states:
"THE TALMUD IS ONE OF THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD. ...IT STILL DOMINATES THE MINDS OF A WHOLE PEOPLE, WHO VENERATE ITS CONTENTS AS DIVINE TRUTH..."
I suggest you refer to SANHEDRIN, 55b-55a,SANHEDR IN, 55b, SANHEDRIN, 69b, KETHUBOTH, 11a-11b, KETHUBOTH, 11a-11b, and ABODAH ZARAH, 36b-37a. For a start to learn what this Sacred Book has to say about justifying pedophilia.
Check mate. Game over. You're done.
What you wrote about the Talmud has no basis in reality, and I am sorry to say that some of what you have written here sounds as if it could have been copied an pasted from some neo-nazi Jew-hater website. Really, really, Palestinians do not need this kind of thing on their behalf.
The Zionists most definitely did not want to create a state based on Jews as a religious group, but as a "nation". Historically, one of the PR challenges the Zionists faced was establishing convincingly that Jews WERE a nation, and I have read some of the discussions and debates on that subject.
Unfortunately, religious extremist elements have been gaining more and more power in Israel just as they are in the United States, Arab countries, and elsewhere (there are even Buddhist extremists, and some of them are violent - go figure!. This seems to be an age of religious fundamentalism. As they are in the United States, these religious fundamentalists are making inroads into the government, so the U.S. is seeing many of the gains made by women and others threatened. The same sort of thing is happening in Israel. It's the way of the world these days.
"The State of Israel is not Orthodox by definition; yet, in many key issues it follows the Halacha – the laws described in the Talmud. One such example is the controversial Law of Return – the law giving immediate citizenship to any Jew landing on Israel. This law is the basis for Israel being a racist state. The definition of Who is a Jew roughly follow the Talmudic definitions. Most civil events – births, marriages, deaths – follow the Talmudic laws and are controlled by “dayanim,” Jewish religious judges."
http://www.roytov.com/articles/oath.htm
What you wrote about the Talmud has no basis in the lives of Israelis. The Halacha is being interpreted by the rabbinical judges in ways that discriminate. Really! Palestinians do not need a Jewish opinion on what they need on their behalf.
The basis for Israel being a racist state is not the law of return, but the very definition of the State as The Jewish State. The moment you describe a state as the state of one specific ethnic group you have created tiers of citizenship for which those citizens of the "wrong" ethnicity occupy the lower tiers.
The fact that civil events in the lives of Israeli Jews are governed by Halacha does not effect non-Jewish citizens, whose civil events are governed by their own religious laws. Governing civil events for Jews by Halacha DOES discriminate against secular Jews who are forced to go outside the country if they wish a non-religious marriage ceremony.
Halacha does not apply to non-Jews in Israel, therefore it is not used to discriminate.
Israel legitimizes terrorism and uses it against any who question their advance. The are the most dangerous nation on earth today, and a leading cause of all fighting in the Middle East.
How quickly you forget. This latest bloodshed was started by Israel murdering a Hamas Military leader in broad daylight. What Israel did had consequences, it's called Blowback.
And the decision to put IGWT on our currency was a cynical attempt in the 1950's(?) by the oligarchs to distinguish "us" from "them", the them being the godless commies. The same bunch of wingnuts who let Joseph McCarthy run amok and ruin who knows how many lives for people doing nothing more than exercising their Constitutional rights to think and speak freely.
Religion in general is often a negative force in society. Religion in government is an unqualified disaster. It's used to persecute enemies of the state with particular virulence. Zealots will use without conforming to norms of due process it to justify the annihilation of their enemies or the taking of their lands. Just look at 19th century US history or Israel today, to name but two examples.
http://www.nationofchange.org/elites-will-make-gazans-us-all-1353395056
I guess it's funny for humorless reactionaries.
Any solutions to offer instead of snide asides ?
I actually had a reply, since it was not complimentary of Carter or Obama it was not allowed.
Free speech is apparently only allowed if it is left wing!
Actually I owe you an apology; I meant say something in response to "Michael_K" and my dysfunctional digits got the better of me. I'm always apologizing for this and my computer slides down a space or two if I get confused.
Mea culpa and I don't mind admitting it. Aging is a bitch, innit!?
Sometimes, ageing has naught to do with being one, dontcha think?
Gee, look at who's humourless now! LOL
Where has Jimmy Carter been that he thinks this is something new? Israeli leaders have been trying to prevent a two-state solution and have had a policy of confiscating Palestinian land since Ben Gurion. Confiscating Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories and preventing a two-state solution has been Israeli leaders' clear goal since the Alon Plan was adopted five weeks after the June, 1967 war.
Is this some "diplomatic" way of speaking on Jimmy Carter's part, or is he really that unaware of reality?
Obama should listen to this 'wiser head' and take notes
Not only should Obama be listening, he should be graciously giving up his seat to Jimmy!
True! How much has the 24-hour news cycle impelled us into jumping the shark on events when a more reasoned response would save us much craziness?
I love Jimmy Carter. Once again, a simple, clear, dispassionate, compassionate voice in a bizarre and screaming world. And he speaks the truth, perhaps not as one side or the other sees it, but as decades of experience show it to be true.
The answer to the riddle at the center of the universe? Quien sabe? Like Shirley Valentine says: "It's like the Middle East. There's no solution." But I wish they could find some common ground -- like maybe not killing each other's children.
I'm sorry but that is so naïve and insulated. How can you expect extremist Muslims to not kill Israeli children in exchange for Israelis not killing the children of Gaza when the extremists kill THEIR OWN children without hesitation? The Taliban is an extremist Islamic group. They don't want girls to get an education. One 14 yr old Pakistani girl wrote a blog objecting to them forbidding her an education so they boarded her school bus and shot her in the head.
In the last 10 years, how many Israeli children have been "persuaded" to be suicide bombers?
None that I could find using google. But children from Gaza?
At least 9 confirmed 2000-2004
One mother, Umm Nidal, sent three of her sons, including one 17 year old, on suicide attacks. She said, "I love my children, but as Muslims we pressure ourselves and sacrifice our emotions for the interest of the homeland."
EMOTIONS??? Her kids are just HER emotions? That's twisted.
This data is hard to nail down but it IS clear that Hamas uses kids as suicide bombers and Israel does not. I find it hard to sympathize with a group that has no compunction about devouring its young.
Sorry, Tref, but the act of sending any Child to war and áreas of danger is equivalent to sending suicide bombers. América sent 65,000 "suicide bombers" to Vietnam.
Just ignore the 700,000 people living on the land divide up their homeland for a foreign, racist group of people.
While history cannot be undone, it sure can be acknowledged. And Isreal needs to be helf accountable for its genocidal and colonialist policies and practices. Isreal has never stopped attacking the Palestinians on every level possible. They have never stopped physically assaulting them whether it be bombs, assassinations, destruction of their farmlands or even their homes, at times with the people still in them.
The solution is for the world to stop dealing with Isreal. Put them under economic and military sanctions. Recognize the right of the Palestinians to their own security and right of self-determinat ion. And get Isreal back behind the 1967 borders which Hamas and Abbas would accept. Reparations need to be made to the Palestinians in and out of Isreal. How many years did Isreal carry on about their reparations for the Holocaust? Why should they be compensated and not the Palestinians? What makes Isreal's geneocidal behavior moral? Nothing! Hold Isreal responsible for what they have illegally done and peace will be acheived.
Weizmann was not pleased with the document, but it was the best they could get, so they pretended it was more than it was.
The root of good and Godly (certainly including the Great Spirit, Allah, et. al.) is love, while the root of evil is pride, which most often hold hands with greed and power. The core hope for we humans, and this ain't always easy, is to foster love, caring, giving, sharing, while we recognize and reject the evil that, tragic and then some, erupts and seeks to rule us all.
Thank you, dear Pres. Carter, for giving us all a much needed Bible school session. Would that every religious leader follow your goodly/Godly example, and help us deliver ourselves from the evil slaughter that's going on in Gaza, and end war, war, war for $$$ and power over all.
Lovely sentiment, thanks.
Just a small point of fact: Allah is not a different entity from God. Allah is the Arabic word for the God of Abraham, just as Gott is the German word, Dieu is the French word, Dios is the Spanish word, and so on. All just different words for the same God.
The upper and lower blue lines symbolize
the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, with the David Star in the middle.
Zionist Israel with no place for the
Palestineans.
Unfortunately, it is always difficult
to be critical towards anything Israelian.
If you are a non-Jew living outside
Israel, you are automatically labelled anti-semite.
If you are Jew living outside Israel,
you are automatically labelled a
"self-hating" Jew.
Only a Jew living in Israel can be
critical without being labelled, and
that makes it of course a little
difficult for the rest of the world.
Also, read sources that include those involved in the Israeli peace bloc such as Gush-Shalom...i agree that there is alot more debate/dissent amongst Israeli Jews than is generally known or acknowledged here in the US.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html
Arafat should never have agreed to the Oslo Accords as they were written.
I WOULD be interested in seeing evidence that the Shin Bet was involved in the murder of Rabin. I have seen nothing so far to convince me that this is the case.
The event had been videotaped by Roni Kempler – a man with unclear but published connections with the security services – who was standing on the “Gan Hair” shopping mall roof. Inexplicably, he was allowed to stand within the sterile security area surrounding Rabin’s exit point. In the minutes before the killing, his video focused mainly on the assassin, as if he knew what was about to happen. In the video, the rear bodyguard was seen clearing the way to the assassin, who shot three bullets before he was restrained by the police.
Rabin was allegedly the best secured head of state in the world. The thought that a civilian could enter the “sterile area” surrounding Rabin was unbelievable.
Raviv knew that and reported Yigal Amir's plan to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin, based on “din rodef,” law of the pursuer, which rabbis interpret as allowing the killing of another Jew to prevent him from handing Jewish land over to non-Jews.
Despite that, the Shin Beth did not stop Amir.
http://www.roytov.com/articles/devil.htm
Always interesting to learn of the government conspiracies (not theories). History is filled with these secretive maneuverings.
Somehow you don't seem to want to see that the people who were in an area that was the most security-sensit ive and vital for a successful assassination provide primary evidence of the machinations of Shin Beth.
Your not wanting to see suggests that you are playing the role of gatekeeper doing damage control, keeping the discussion from getting beyond what the Truth Ministry deems out of control.
You also showed no interest in discovering who actually was quoted. The URL was available so you could research my source in this regard.
What I want to see is evidence for the claims made in the article, and I have seen none. And by the way, what you claim is not primary evidence for anything. If there were actualy that the assassin was in such a security-sensit ive area, then that would constitute circumstantial evidence, and would not be conclusive, but could contribute to a case against the Shin Beth, not necessarily for complicity, but certainly for a breach of responsibility.
Try to understand that when YOU make a claim it is not MY job to research and produce the evidence, it is yours, and you have failed to do so.
And oh, yeah, I am an Israeli agent - you have busted me. (shakes head)
http://www.roytov.com/introduction.htm
I would be happy if you stopped showing unsupported claims written by someone on a website, and showed some real evidence.
the Shamgar Judicial Commission of Inquiry established that Raviv worked for the Shin Bet
Shin Bet was responsible for Rabin's security.
Shin Bet permitted the assassin to enter a secure zone behind Rabin as he exited the building.
But expecting this evidence to result in an honest trial in the highly politicized State of Israel is to demand too much of justice in a skewed judicial system.
I would like to see real evidence. I don't think there is any.
Evidence can be a very transient thing you know. In courts people get convicted with the flimsiest of presentations. Evidenced based medicine in the US today usually means that someone had enough money to buy the FDA and media, and that includes the top medical journals. When we talk about events like 911, there is so much factual evidence that contradicts the snow job accepted in Congress that it IS possible to construct a different scenario that is backed by international leaders such as the Prime Minister (I that was his position) of Italy who publicly stated that 911 was put together by the US and its allies. As for LBJ being involved with the assassination of JFK? Again, there is good evidence to point in that direction. Given the sleaze of most governments and their predilection to kill those who get in the way of power, one should keep an open mind to such theories.
As for Isreal, their self-serving marketing propaganda is confronted by the realities on the ground.
Perhaps your lack of verbiage doesn't produce support for you either.
Get it? :)
That said, tamarque and aaheart have brought forward evidence that a faction was behind the murder and that the faction might have included Shin Beth or part of it. One can visualise the kind of faction that would wish to do that, like the kind that would have engineered Kennedy's murder and for similar reasons.
Such factions do conspire behind closed doors, do recruit others, do involve patsies, do cover up, do fail to cover up ALL evidence, do deride suspicion as "conspiracy theories". It is likely that in many such cases (Rabin, Kennedy?) too much will be buried and there will be too much reluctance to look for nasties under rocks for anything ever to be proved.
None the less, shaky lone gunman theories remain implausible and it is right to challenge them as it is right to challenge the wild conspiracy theory that a group of Arabs hidden in tunnels managed unaided to stand down America's defences, level the Twin Towers, hole the Pentagon, and junk maybe for ever much of what America stands for at home and abroad that is decent.
In all such cases "cui bono?" is a compelling clue, and bits of the truth show up even where too much is hidden for it to be possible to demonstrate the whole story.
The links in the articles I have looked at all appear to refer back to other articles by - you guess it - the author of the original article. This does not meet even the minimal requirements to qualify as evidence.
There may have been members of the Shin Beth involved in the murder of Rabin, but nothing in any of the material presented by tamarques or aaheart is convincing.
All I am saying is show me something real.
Please do not confuse me with others. I noted Balfour's comments, not the Balfour Declaration. Just yesterday I read some of his quotes on the situation historically and thoae are what I referred to.
But to tell the truth, aside from some egotism on your part, I have no idea what your points really are on this situation. I suggest that if you have something to contribute to this discussion, please present your ideas/facts/int erpretations. Otherwise, you are being redundant for no meaningful purpose.
All I have done here is ask for some actual evidence to support the claim that the Shin Beth was involved in the Rabin murder. I am not required to present ideas/facts/int erpretations when I am simply attempting to gather information.
Although unlike Tov I am not a Christian I can well understand his plight as an Israeli officer. That's the down side of military service - hogtying yourself to the immorality of the state (pretty well any state).
I would not dismiss Shin Beth involvement as umrayya has all but done (Wikipedia [1] lists a large number of indications that Yigal Amir was a patsy misled through his own religious lunacy).
The context of the murder is one in which Rabin was dangling the diversionary Oslo chimera which would have freaked out powerful extremists who took it seriously. Shin Beth is the sort of outfit that could well include some of these. Securocrats usually include some cowboys.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin_assassination_conspiracy_theories
As I have said previously, my opinion based on quite a bit of evidence is that Oslo was a hoax on the Palestinians, and that the Israelis who negotiated it with Arafat never intended for it to be carried out. That's opinion, not fact, but I have strong reasons to believe it is correct.
Wish I could find the video that I saw about a year ago. It was on Netanyahoo, sitting in someone's home, assuring them that the 2-state solution would never happen.
But the biggest facts we have are on the ground, as they say. It is what they do, not what they say, that provides facts of their goals.
Of course, it would not surprise me to hear Netanyahu say that the two-state solution will never happen. What most people do not seem able to wrap their heads around is that Labour has done every bit as much as Likud and more to prevent it. They just tend to be a bit more smooth and discrete about it.
An employee of Shin Beth was at the side of the assassin in a place where security would demand only cleared personnel with a need to be in that location would be permitted.
That same employee knew that the assassin had searched for a rabbi who would support the killing of Rabin and reported this to his handlers.
The videographer focused on the assassin prior to the assassination and then on the movements of the bodyguard who cleared people away from the target area to give the assassin three clear shots.
"I would like to see real evidence. I don't think there is any."
To say that you don't think there is any evidence implies an inside knowledge of the assassination, believing that the coverup by Shin Beth was successful.
Certainly enough questions would have been raised from this evidence to direct a more vigorous investigation, but expecting Shin Beth to investigate itself is naive. Instead, Shin Beth employs internet hasbara to provide a limited hangout.
http://www.roytov.com/articles/jewishfatherlandlaw.htm
In signing the Oslo Accords Arafat sold out. I recommend Hanan Ashrawi's book, This Side of Peace.
Yigal Amir murdered Yitzhak Rabin, presumably because he (and whoever may have aided, abetted, or put him up to it) believed that Rabin was going to give away part of what they consider Eretz Israel.
I do not believe and have never believed that Yitzhak Rabin intended for Oslo to be anything but a way to buy time to establish enough facts on the ground to obviate a Palestinian state.
How that adds up to me saying that Rabin's assassination was "just a coincidence" is beyond comprehension.
Within Israel too I'm afraid. One Israel-born Jew who was so labelled was Ilan Pappe, who on the basis of extensive scholarly research wrote the blockbuster "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." Because of his probing research he was drummed out of his post at the University of Haifa and now is a senior professor at the University of Exeter, UK. Worth Googling him - better, reading his book (mine is an Amazon Kindle edition at $9.99).
A book also worth following up is Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People". Another thoroughgoing Israeli scholar to be reviled by the Zionists as a "self-hating Jew". I got mine through Amazon Kindle but they have paperback too.
I should probably break down and read Sand's work just so I fully understand it. I have not read it, partly because I have other priorities, and partly because I do not find these types of attempts at delegitimizatio n to be helpful.
For example, my reaction to the whole Khazar controversy is, and always has been "so what?". It does not matter at all whether Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of the Israelites of Biblical times, or of European converts to Judaism. They are Jews no matter how they got that way, and they have every bit as much right to their Jewishness and all it means to them, including feeling connected to the land of the Israelites, as do my Iraqi friends who are direct descendants of the Jews of the Babylonian exile.
Trying to delegitimize Zionism by delegitimizing all or a segment of the people who consider themselves Jewish is a deadend, just as are the attempts by various means to deligitimize the Palestinians. Both ignore the real issues here of foreign colonization, dispossession, displacement, and oppression of the weak by those more powerful.
I would add the same for [religious] Jewish or, for that mater, any religious law.
A colleague once complained, on my calling for return of the exiles, that that would end up with Sharia law in Israel and I responded in jest (sort of) that that would be a bad thing but it couldn't happen to a nicer mob. Well, until the foreign settlers returned to their homelands, anyway.
Are religious differences a impenetrable wall against a peaceful state of being?
THe Jewish people, to their credit, have fought for equality for themselves and all others around the World but in Israel they wish to continue superiority through racial laws and exclusion of others.
You are correct. In Israel all Jews are equal, but some Jews are more "equal" than others.
It is no accident that the majority of residents of high-risk border areas such as Ashdod are Jews of Arabic origin. The Jews who were brought to Israel from Arab countries were settled in these dangerous areas while Ashkenazi Jews were given homes in safer, more desirable areas of the country.
It is not as if Gaza was like how the Japanese were put in camps in the US. Things are good for parts of Gaza and they have an economy (hope I can post this link) http://www.israellycool.com/2010/07/20/a-taste-of-concentration-camp-gaza-the-grand-palace-hotel/
It can be interesting to read about some of the early intra-Zionist debates on how they would legitimize creating a Jewish State in Palestine in order to get the European powers behind them.
hjsteed, the one-state solution is actually an old idea going back to before the founding of the state of Israel. Some progresive Jews including Hannah Arrendt, Albert Einstein, Martin Buber and others supported the idea of one secular state of Palestine for all its inhabitants and warned that the creation of a Jewish state would lead to protracted if not unending conflict.
The problem at this point is whether the one-state solution is possible, still a good idea and whehther it would advance the cause of and ultimately bring peace.
Here's an interesting debate between Ilan Pappe (who supports the one-state solution) and Uri Avnery (who opposes it). Both are committed peace activists and have consistantly opposed the Israeli occupation and treatment of the Palestinians.
http://www.countercurrents.org/pappe110607.htm
When the 2 State offer was made at the VERY start, it was the Palestinians who said it was not enough land they wanted it all. It was Israel that forcibly removed their citizens from Gaza to give that land to the PLO. They are not in 'camps', there are luxury hotels, party/event places, high rise apt buildings, etc. They want more land. It is Israel that provides them with electricity as well as aid. The treatment at the borders were necessary to reduce the suicide bombers that were coming through. The ONLY reason there have been less casualties on the Israeli side is that most have been living in bomb shelters. The Palestianians set up their rocket launches in densely populated areas, apt bldgs and also set bombs in those buildings and kill their own. Let us not forget, that EVERY country the Palestinians lived in before, threw them out along with Arafat. If you had someone living down the block from you who kept firing rockets at your home, how long would you wait to fire back?
What is being asked of Israel is absurd - the Palestinians do not recognize Israel's right to exist - there is no place to start but there as a first step, no?
And, the fact that the Arab states have not treated the Palestinians any better than Israel because they have always seen them as a threat to their own dictatorial and or theocratic regimes (due to the fact that the Palestinian movement has historically been overwhelmingly secular and democratic and that the Palestinians have tended to be amongst the most highly educated populations in the Arab world)is an important critique but in no way excuses the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli gov't.
Accepting Palestinian refugees inside their borders is a very costly matter for these countries, some of which are barely able to provide for their own citizens.
much destruction has Israel caused in the last 6 days/
How many civilians has Israel killed in the last six days? How many children?
How many civilians has Israel maimed for life in the last six days? How many children?
"Let us not forget, that EVERY country the Palestinians lived in before, threw them out along with Arafat."
Really? Then how do you account for the enormous number of Palestinians living in Lebanon? in Jordan? in Syria? in Egypt? all over North Africa? In the Gulf states? In Europe? In the United States?
You have absolutely no clue what you are carrying on about, and yet you keep spouting this contra-factual nonsense. Do some research, get some real information, then come back and we can have a real adult conversation.
Gaza is NOT a lightly populated prison. It is densely populated and has few, if any, bomb shelters.
Those rockets have mostly landed on Palestinian lands that are now illegally occupied by Israelis. They occupy that land with near impunity...but for the big bottle rockets that occasionally arrive in their stolen property.
Hamas had established a cease fire but Israel interrupted that with a bullet into the stomach of a 13 year old boy playing football in his neighborhood streets. Murdering children in broad daylight is not a good way for Israel to keep the peace.
Oh, and if EVERY country the Palestinians lived in threw them out, how is it that there are millions of Palestinians living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Gulf States, North Africa, Europe, the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia, and New Zealand?
True. Carter's campaign manager wrote a book about it.
As an American living overseas during the Carter Presidency I returned to a country that blamed its failures on him. In an effort to understand what his "crimes" were I have listened to his speeches to the American people where he encouraged them to adopt a more energy efficient lifestyle. Had the country followed his lead then, things would be much improved now.
In order to prevent a two-state solution, it is obvious that growing settlements were designed as facts on the ground to promote Isreali land theft. The army is always positioned to support the rabid settlers as they rampage and destroy Palestinian farm land. Can you imagine the grief you would feel if you went out to your orchards to tend them only to discover 100's of your olive trees picked clean or, worse, cut down and bruatlized? Some of these trees were several hundred years old!
And Isreal the defenseless? $3 billion a year from the US for military purposes is not defenseless. Nor are over 100 nuclear warheads in a non-nuclear region. White phosphorous spewed out on a trapped population is pure genocide. For what purpose?
And as for peace? Isreal is not a partner for peace. They have destroyed every single effort put forth by the Palestinians. Only this past month there was a peace plan put forth by the Palestinians via an Isreali negotiator. Isreals answer was to kill a top Palestinian military leader and then drop a drone on home killing the entire family. That is Isreal the peace partner.
Were you aware that Ahmad Jaabari, the "top Palestinian military leader" you referred to was the chief Palestinian negotiator for that piece plan you referred to? As Gershon Baskin put it, Israel assassinated the chance for calm.
Can you be more specific?
What's happening in Gaza right now is nothing more than a demotic prison guards attacking a prison full of prisoners. The Palestinians have been sentenced to life imprisonment without committing a crime. They are walled in on three sides and on the 4th they are manned by gun boats. They are completely isolated and yet Israel try's to make us believe they are a threat! This is an so ridiculous. Israel and their laws are the threat.
Thank you President Carter for all your hard work. Maybe one day America will wake-up and quite flipping the bill for war on innocent people.
To diffuse religious violence we need to strike at the root of the problem which is violence promoting "holy" books. The best way to do that is to take the advice of the American revolutionary and Deist Thomas Paine. In his landmark book on God and religion, The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition, Paine called for a revolution in religion based on our God-given reason and Deism. I think Thomas Paine was correct!
Progress! Bob Johnson
www.deism.com
Your claims about ruling the world sound disturbingly like the anti-semitic screed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I hope that is not where you were trying to go with this.
Progress! Bob Johnson
www.deism.com
Progress! Bob Johnson
www.deism.com
Netanyahu's saying that Jerusalem is Israel's capital has nothing to do with the Bible. That claim goes back to Ben Gurion et al. who were all secular Jews, and mostly atheists and cared not a bit about the Bible.
What you are saying about Israel ruling the world is contrafactual nonsense, and sounds more and more like classical anti-Semitism. I hope it is not.
Israel is a secular state that has used biblical texts to support its secular demands. Nothing ineffective about that. Your argument is rendered ineffective by your contrafactual assertions and epithet.
If I have made contra-factual assertions, then I am quite sure you can quote them.
And now that you are defending the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as realistic, I am finished talking with you. Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same thing.
Was Benjamin Freedman anti-Semitic?
Henry H. Klein wrote Zionism Rules the World.
Was Henry H. Klein anti-Semitic?
The poll results fly in the face of American conservatives and even President Barack Obama, who have taken the lead in discouraging the U.N. from voting on the matter, claiming that it could threaten Israel’s security???
www.disinfo.com/2011/09/vast-majority-of-israelis-want-to-recognize-palestinian-state/
It would seems that most INFORMED people agree - but our oligarchs have different goals.
And how interesting that you know what "they" say on their TV stations. Where did you learn Arabic?
Is everyone here aware of the Arab League Peace Proposal that has been on the table for a decade, and that the Israelis have refused to consider even as a starting point for negotiations?
If the democratic principle of one person one vote is applied, the next government of Israel would probably be Arab.
Now, if you insist upon confusing claims with evidence, then you can believe anything you like to believe, and you can be my guest, but without evidence I am not going to believe something that is not very plausible to begin with.
And Carter is in favor of shari'a law, the most punitive and unaccountable law in hisstory. And torture is a legal sanction in the Muslim countries. Iran hanged 175 people in one day this week. How many more people have to die for 'moral' crimes, while the most immoral people on the earth are the Muslim leaders, 'who lead after their own whim and desires. On their tongue the mention of God hath become an empty name, in their midst, his holy Word, a dead letter.'
Go ahead and back these losers all you like, the day will surely come when perdition overtakes you.
Please explain. I thought he was a Baptist Christian and promoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
It's the last line of his column. It's like saying the neo-Nazis have the right to vote in their fascist dictates, if they get enough votes. Shari'a law must be abolished.
But mostly you are showing utter ignorance of what Shari`a is. All you appear to "know" about Shari`a is what you have read on anti-Islam hate sites, I am afraid. In fact, to equate in any way Islam with fascism reveals your complete ignorance of both.
Wrapped up in a lot of "motherhood" statements about moral living, when it comes down to stating what Sharia law actually provides once it gets to controlling civil law or any other form of coercion it is a gross affront to human freedom and dignity, to be resisted implacably by anyone who doesn't want the liberating gains of and subsequent to the Enlightenment reversed.
Sharia law is based at centre on bald assertions about the existence, requirements and authority of God as proclaimed by the authority of those who wrote the Moslem "holy books".
Democracy is about governing society, not about violating the autonomy of individuals. The role of a democratic state includes (1) to respect the autonomy of each individual and (2) to protect that autonomy from the intrusive exercise of the autonomy of other individuals or groups. It is within that that the state must govern the running of society and enact laws that apply to all.
Promotion of Sharia is and must be permissible in a democratic state but implementation to anybody but consenting adults is not. Brushing aside the sugar coating, the kernel of Sharia law is a dagger at the heart of human liberty.
Once again, how about providing some of your understanding as opposed to simply attacking. You need to contribute in a constructive way, or give it up.
I don't blame your flat denials; for many, many Muslims it is impossible to break the cycle of violence that Muslims are raised in and have no control over. It is simply too much to believe there can be a life without torture and abuse, and they remain chained to a hopeless future and a dictatorial and unsustainable way of life.
The day will come when it all comes crashing down. On that day, the teachings of Baha'u'llah will still be there for you to show you the path to righteousness and unity.
Is it fair to characterize a person's religious position as something that it may not be?
The IDF now knows how long it takes to call up the reserves and another 50,000 have already been recruited and are in place.
There will be another attack on Gaza and this time the IDF will go in for a barbaric mass murder of a civilian population. The reluctance of the UN and world goverrnments has been measured and there is little that can be done in time to save Gazans. Netanyahu would have affected a fait accompli and smirk at the world, "so what are you going to do about it..."
http://www.roitov.com/articles/irondomepillarofcloud.htm
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