Israel to World: "Suck It."

I was thinking more along the lines of a nature preserve.

in my more nihilistic moments I have thought someone should just nuke the place and render it totally uninhabitable for anybody. problem solved.

there could be some advance warning even - everyone who wants to die in the holy land, your wish is about to come true! Everyone else gets a free pass to the country of their choice.

plus if ever two groups of ppl had experience w/ being kicked out of their homes it's a the jews + palestinians amirite?

god the guardian is really such a shitty newspaper

Yeah with their demographic studies and quotes and whatnot

more just their transparent editorializing in the guise of a 'news story' which doesn't contain any news, but those demographic studies (i read that FP article when it first came out) are not particularly great either. they rely on including gaza in all demographic calculations, and using historical growth data instead of contemporary data to paint a particularly distressing picture. the truth is that israel could annex all of the west bank tmmrw (i'm not even just referring to area c - a + b too) and it would still be a jewish majority.

+ based on current birthrates for palestinian + jewish populations would continue to be a jewish majority into the near future (and all trends point to palestinian birthrates only decreasing further as they integrate more into a first world country w/ universal healthcare + family planning)

There is a bit of filling in a story to talk about Obama going to Israel for his first state visit. Wish he hadn't gone at all, tbh, just to piss off morons in Florida.

if they want to run a news story about obama going to israel there is plenty to discuss w/out pegging the story to israel's demographic destruction and the death of the mythical two state solution - topics that by all accounts from serious newspapers (aka NYT, WAPO, WSJ, etc) aren't supposed to come up during the visit at all.

Also their paper size is The Berliner, which is just another sign of German Imperialism in Europe

The article says that those topics won't come up during the visit at all. They're just reporting on what people have been saying ahead of the visit, but maybe they shouldn't do that.

More settlements all around, then!

essentially this story is: "obama isn't planning on discussing two state solution or the peace process in any serious formal way on this trip, but these ppl wish he would!" in 1500 words or so

Yeah, which stokes the fires of the anti-Semitic left

Wish nobody had reported on what was being omitted at the climate change conference in Copenhagen because that ain't news.

it's not like the ppl they're quoting are particularly newsworthy -- kerry they get on an old quote w/ questionable relevance, and they mention gatekeepers which is timely, but look at the ppl who make up the bulk of the article:

Alon Liel, a former director general of the foreign ministry in Jerusalem and a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa
David Aaron Miller – a negotiator in efforts by the Clinton administration to broker an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and an adviser on Middle East policy to six US secretaries of state
S Daniel Abraham, a US billionaire, confidante of American and Israeli leaders, and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace in Washington
Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel and now vice-president of the Brookings Institution

Yeah none of them have a valid opinion

you've convinced me gukbe. peacelovethegap.

No doubt. Actually only posted it because it was throwing "apartheid" around.

Not sure what I was meant to be convincing you of, mind.

netanyahu apologized to erdogan over the flotilla raid!

& agreed to compensate families to boot. good lord.

Israel to World: "Sorry, we fucked up"

i'm into that decision

Just 36% of Americans younger than 30 sympathize more with Israel, while 19% sympathize more with the Palestinians. A relatively large share of young people (37%) either offer no opinion (34%) or say they sympathize with both sides (3%).

http://www.people-press.org/2013/03/19/public-remains-supportive-of-israel-wary-of-iran/

https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/315579678138175489

netanyahu apologized to erdogan over the flotilla raid!

― max, Friday, March 22, 2013 3:36 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

& agreed to compensate families to boot. good lord.

― ogmor, Friday, March 22, 2013 3:40 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

according to ben shapiro, bibi was "bullied" into doing this by mean ol' Obama

i'm sure it was in both country's interest to repair diplomatic relations, esp re syria + iran situations

it was wise bullying at worst.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-03-30/israel-begins-gas-production-at-tamar-field-in-boost-to-economy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/01/israel-jails-conscientous-objector-eighth

http://www.opisrael.com word is that this was a hacker site attacking israel. so israel hackers took it over and now it plays hatikvah.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/04/opisrael-hack-versus-counter-hack/

Thought this was very, very good on both sides:
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/793-israel-can-live-with-a-nuclear-iran

I have gradually come to like Jeffrey Goldberg less and less and I thought he sounded a bit hysterical here, but the other "against" guy was very good, as were the "for" guys.

I have gradually come to like Jeffrey Goldberg less and less < so otm

I feel like there is a slightly unhinged man underneath his veil of reasonableness.

also he doesn't seem particularly bright

i thought you loved him?

i liked him a few years ago but i've since gotten really tired of his shtick

yeah his arguments were kind of wandering all over the place. It was like "You literally think that Iran will nuke Israel within three years?" "Absolutely." "Well what basis do you have for that." "Look, no Israelis are going to want to stay in Israel so it will stop being a Jewish state." "But what can Iran do differently than it could before?" "No one is going to want to invest in Israel."

i think he leans heavily on his access. his thinking on middle east issues tho are often just MOR DC centrist CW - i don't think he demonstrates a lot of insight into middle east politics or events. maybe he used to be better, idk, or maybe i got older

this is pretty much where against the motion won, i think

And all of these problems with launch on warning -- now, I quite take the fact that these regimes don't have the controlled mechanisms, the command and control or even the technologies that will make this a safer world. And so I fully acknowledge that there's an element of risk there. I fully acknowledge that Israel shouldn't live with a nuclear Iran if there's a better option. I'm just arguing that there may not be a better option.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/11566_10151377952296409_1118235419_n.jpg

No end to Truman's embarrassments.

i miss the days when banner headlines were like 20-30 words

ugh... please stop?

can we stay the fuck out of this as well?

I think it's too late, plans seem to have been already made.
Israel are the cocky little kid that starts a fight then lets the bigger kid step in and finish it.

oh don't be such drama queens: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/world/middleeast/syria-says-it-was-hit-by-strikes-from-israeli-planes.html

I think it's too late, plans seem to have been already made.
Israel are the cocky little kid that starts a fight then lets the bigger kid step in and finish it.

― not_goodwin, Saturday, May 4, 2013 3:35 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not really. Israel did this in 2007 as well. They struck a shipment of arms that was headed for hezbollah, not a stationary target.

I would say it's unlikely this is aimed to open up a wider war, although you never know