Obama Cairo speech was ORGASMIC.. I'll pull for the Bullz if it helps his vision of world peace.

the obligatory "morning" to aboutready, urbandigs, columbiacounty, falco, dwell, nyc10023 etc.... oh alpine292 and steveF.... "i'm awake, must mean NYC RE must be going up, crowd" :)

how could you forget alanhart? just joking, too many to keep track of. top o' the mornin' to you, too. does anyone have a ready link to the Obama speech?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/06/04/obama.speech.short.cnn

thanks! will watch.

He had them at "Salaam".

yep. it's really refreshing to hear from the president that USA doesn't support settlements nor the oppression of the Palestine people. USA should put much more conditions on Israel if they want our support (no matter how hard they lobby). it cannot be unconditional of how they treat the Palestinians.

My partner and I were just discussing said speech. Is it true that the text of all Presidential speeches are released beforehand? That's annoying.

I spent some formative years in a Muslim country. It is interesting to be able to read some of what's published in the non-English media, esp. from a Muslim viewpoint. One of the greatest misfortunes/dilemmas of the moderate Islamic world is the inability of the moderates to counter the radicals effectively. Some of that has to do with the excellent (relatively, speaking) services that the radicals have provided the poor and the perceived/real moral corruption of the moderate Muslims.

Ugh, the CNN link doesn't play the entire speech.

Go on MSNBC.com

admin, "USA should put much more conditions on Israel if they want our support (no matter how hard they lobby). it cannot be unconditional of how they treat the Palestinians."
And those $$ billions should be conditional on NOT shelling kindergartens, no? And on NOT kidnapping people, NOT calling on demise of Israel, NOT shooting at school buses, NOT starting the Yom Kippur war... Oh, I forgot: Jews are bad no matter who
Israel made a mistake that Britain didn't. Britain didn't name Ireland "occupied territories". It should have been one Greater Israel with everyone living there with Israeli passports.

admin, the settlement issue with the Palestinians obscures the real issue, which is national security. Unfortunately there's a rouge element among the Palenstinians that has wanted to destroy Israel for years, no matter what. This all happend way before Israel occupied the W Bank & Gaza.

Let's get back to NYC RE.

it was interesting how little they applauding the President when he spoke of the 2 state solution.

"it was interesting how little they applauding the President when he spoke of the 2 state solution."

probably cultural...clapping not really what they used to doing

yeah... but not even one shoe thrown in the air? Isn't that how they celebrate..... ?

admin: any conditions on palestinians or they all clear to keep killing children?

beholder, if you want to take a lesson from ireland/britain it's that a two state solution needs to happen. Plus, prosperity makes everyone happier.

Or you can take a lesson from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh and go for the three-state solution ... but nobody's serious enough about lasting peace and prosperity to even suggest such a thing.

(Contrapunto: Kashmir isn't so soft and fuzzy, so I guess even that wasn't a perfect solution.)

"One of the greatest misfortunes/dilemmas of the moderate Islamic world is the inability of the moderates to counter the radicals effectively."

same is true with Israel. i do believe that Obama is honest about wanting a estate for Palestine, but how it will have to be connected (geographically speaking, now it's not). that's where the crux is, that means not only not more settlements but also that Israel will have to retreat from some territories to make for a connected territory for Palestine. it's easy to occupy a territory previously populated, isolate the people, form ghettos and proceed each decade to shrink it into smaller and smaller pieces. now, being successful at telling the oppressed how to complain about that in a civilized manner that's acceptable to the occupier is much more difficult to pull off. who's the victim for those without an agenda that try to be objective is not so clear cut.

admin, all clear then let the palestinian murderers continue, we'll see how much land that gets them.

admin, I don't agree with the Israeli radicals' perspective of controlling the entire West Bank territory, but nevertheless I think it's disingenuous to consider this the moral equivalent of the Palestinian radicals who support suicide bombing. Right-wing Israelis' support of the settlement enterprise is foolish and wrong, but it is NOT anywhere near as corrupt as supporting murder.

Also, your description of the historical record of what happened in the West Bank and Gaza is completely misleading. Israelis were not some power-hungry oppresive regime who enslaved people in 1967, they were a beleaguered nation 20 years after the Holocaust, just trying to survive in a region that had repeatedly tried to destroy it. The Israelis didn't put Palestinians in "ghettos," as you say - rather, they won a territory (historically and geographically part of Israel) in a war started by the surrounding Arab countries. I'm not denying the poverty affecting Palestinians, I'm just curious how you can blame Israel for putting Palestinians in ghettos, a loaded term that I assume you mean to compare with the Nazi persecution of Jews by putting them into ghettos? During WWII, Nazi Germany took Jewish citizens out of their home and put them into ghettos based solely on being Jewish. This is not morally comparable to Israel taking over a territory in a war it didn't start!!

Now I agree that going forward, the best path is a 2-state solution since every group of people should have the right to security, economic freedom, and self-determination. But it's very disingenuous to blame the Israeli side for the situation, when blame should be equally if not more on the other side.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/sol123/palestinemap.jpg

enough said? not really, gaza and west bank population: 3.3 million, israel: 7.2 million. if it doesn't look like the idea is to compress the 3.3 million into a few acres, i don't know what it does. who told you that the territory shrinkage was due to a single war not started by Israel? that is disingenuous to put it very nicely.

the ghetto world is not "charged". ghettos are not a 20th century invention unfortunately and do not afflict only one minority. are you familiar with the living arrangements of the minorities in USA since USA started by chance? in Manhattan for example?

good summary paradoxes, the reason it's pointless to argue is that for people who assume moral equivalency or worse (like admin) end justifies means. those folks usually fall into one of two categories, those who hate the notion of israel themselves, and those naive enough to think that a two state solution is of any interest to palestinians.

admin, don't you think it would be a great idea to color that map green and wipe all that white off the face of the earth?

it's not rocket science that if their lives are too painful to live testosterone-filled youngsters will think about killing themselves and cause pain in the process. why do you either support israel unconditionally or have to hate it? why cannot they accept any criticism? what i'm saying is widely accepted in other parts of the planet why a great human rights record like sweeden, norway and netherlands. so why is it so tough to talk about this in usa still? anyway, enough said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab-Israeli_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transjordan

The word "ghetto" is absolutely a charged term. A quick google search shows the wikipedia entry containing the following:

Etymology: "The term 'ghetto' was originally used to refer to the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy where Jews were forced to live."

History: "The term came into widespread use in Ghettos in occupied Europe 1939-1944 where the Jews were required to live prior to their transportation to concentration and death camps."

Now maybe you personally didn't intend this implication, but it's obvious that from both the origin and the popularization of the word, it IS IN FACT used primarily to describe persecution of Jews by Europeans.

Also, I can't even begin to describe the oversimplifications and distortions present in the map that you link to. PALESTINIANS DIDNT HAVE AN INDEPENDENT STATE BEFORE 1947, it was a territory occupied by Britain! Jews immigrated to the country because they were being oppressed and murdered by their host countries in Europe, they didn't immigrate there because they wanted to persecute Palestinians! The U.N. in 1947 presented a Partition Plan to divide the land between Jews and Arabs - the Arab side rejected the arrangement, the Jews accepted. As soon as the Jewish state was declared, it was attacked by all surrounding Arab countries.

To summarize, first of all, European Jews only immigrated to Israel because they had nowhere else to go. Second of all, they didn't STEAL the Palestinian country, there was no state there to begin with! The U.N. divided the land in 2 as a compromise which was rejected by the Palestinians, and that's how the Israeli state was formed. If the Palestinians had at any point shown that they were serious about living in peace with Israel, I am sure that it would have been easy for Israel to grant them indepdence in the areas that they're living in the West Bank and Gaza. And hopefully, Obama will be able to accomplish that going forward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

ok, if you want replace the word "ghetto" for "reservation".

that's just semantics. use the word you want, a new one if you prefer.

ok, now seriously, enough said on my part. this SE is addictive.

Also, I don't know where you're getting from my remarks that you have to either support Israel unconditionally or hate it. I said I disagree with the Israeli government's policy on building new settlements in the West Bank, so clearly I don't unconditionally support every policy of the Israeli government.

The reason your remarks have generated intense debate, is because I (and many others in the U.S., especially in New York) do have personal ties to the country. My grandparents survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel after getting out of the Displaced Persons camp in europe in 1946. And I'm sure many others have similar stories. So it bothers me to see Israel presented as some sort of oppressive force on par with other fascist regimes. That's all.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/sol123/palestinemap.jpg
enough said? not really, gaza and west bank population: 3.3 million, israel: 7.2 million. if it doesn't look like the idea is to compress the 3.3 million into a few acres

To suggest that the U.N. creation of Israel and several wars (Independence War, 1956, 1967, 1973, etc) was just a plan by Israel was to compress 3.3 million into a few acres is plain inaccurate.

admin, you're buying part and parcel into the war of propaganda (and arms) that the Arab nations engaged in beginning in 1947, when they could have been nation-building instead. A key part of the propaganda is to start at 1945, as if there'd been no Jewish presence before, and as if the current Muslim population had always been there. Untrue in the extreme.

In a nutshell, for hundreds of years "Palestine" was a vaguely defined, little-populated [see travel writings from the 19th century] (but within that, Jews, Arab Muslims, and Arab Christians) territory of the far-away Ottoman Empire. Zionism began bringing in lots of Jewish emigres beginning in the 1870s. The economy really took off after WWI, when the Ottoman Empire was defunct and the presence of the British military boosted the economy and caused lots of immigration ... both European Jews and Arabs from the surrounding areas, mostly Syria. In the early 1920s, 86% of the British Mandate of Palestine was lopped off to create an Arab Muslim state -- Transjordan. In the 1930s, Brits banned further Jewish immigration (but not Arab immigration, which continued).

In 1947, the UN partition plan, supported by the entire world except the Arab nations (who had no particular ownership rights, being only neighbors of the empire-controlled area), did as good a job as possible to separate by ethnic population, but imperfectly. Jerusalem was supposed to be an international zone belonging to neither, so clearly the maps that admin linked to are propagandistic bullshit, and unsourced. The Arab states immediately went to war against Israel, a pattern that would follow every couple of years or so in the two decades leading up to the 1967 six-day war.

It always amazes me that so many people come to conclusions on either side of this issue without making any attempt to sift through the propaganda from both sides and find historical fact in proper perspective -- but clearly the anti-Israel propaganda is winning, especially among under-30-year-olds.

My opinion is that there should be a three-state solution, and that Israeli settlements should be removed except where they're needed for security reasons (mountain range invites snipers, etc.), and that the treatment of Jewish and Christian holy sites by Jordan/Palestinians prior to 1967 makes it clear that (an permanent international zone being impractical) Jerusalem should be part of Israel. And then a "strong fences make good neighbors" policy -- no Palestinian guest workers in Israel, etc.

funny who everybody here believes the other is biased or brainwashed but for sure not themselves. very true that the not moderate reactions are so prevalent cause of the personal stories here (i do know people directly affected by the holocaust that are not biased against palestinians). it would be nice to hear and see the other side of the story much more often in mainstream media in usa. i've heard some saying that even famous pictures of the suffering that palestinians go through were fake. that level of denial should be put to rest (imho).

who should be how

http://www.drybonesproject.com/blog/D07527_1.gif

admin, I don't know specifically what photos you're talking about, but when I'm presented with propaganda maps that don't show Jerusalem as the neutral area that was part of the partition plan, I'm entirely open to the idea that fake-suffering photos are propagated. On that note, know what you're looking at even when photos are real. Pictures of refugee camps show the same crumbly concrete that can be seen throughout central Cairo and most of the semi-third world ... and how is a place with multistory concrete buildings a "camp"? Learn to parse verbal claims also, whether it's the ridiculous bible-based claims of Jewish settlers that "we've been here forever" or the equally misleading claims of Palestinians who've "farmed this land for generation" [yeah, three, and as sharecroppers in a feudal arrangement with an Arab landlord, until he sold his land].

"The story" is exactly that, and doesn't belong in the mainstream media. It's basically emotional manipulation in the style that the BBC loves so well. Palestinians live much better than Arabs in most of the Middle East.

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP07-012/$File/rwp_07_012_kalb.pdf

admin, for you to claim that i am "biased against Palestinians," you need to explain how any of my positions are irrational or unreasonable. That's how rational debate is conducted - you have to acutally provide reasonable points, not just call someone names.

I brought up the Holocaust, because it provides a historical context for the founding of the State of Israel as a Jewish state, when from your posts it would seem that this is some racist plot to oppress the downtrodden Palestinians.

I don't see how my insistence that Israel has a right to exist as a free, secure country is biased. As I've said, I support the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, as long as they use this freedom to exist in peace, rather than use the freedom to fire rockets at Israel (as they were doing from Gaza after Israel withdrew).

Now that's an argument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM

Paradoxes. To bring up the Holocast as context for the founding of Israel doesn't paint the whole picture. Do you know about Chaim Weizmann and Acetone?
http://www.einstein-website.de/biographies/weizmann_content.html

Weizmann followed a call to the University of Manchester in 1904. He married Vera Khatzmann in England in 1906. With her he had two sons, Benjamin and Michael. Through his work in the Zionist movement he had the opportunity to persuade the British Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930) of the idea of Zionism. Weizmann became British citizen and supported the British warfare as chemist during World War I. He succeeded in developing a new synthesis for acetone effected by enzymes. Due to his engagement and his political influence during the years of war he significantly participated in the establishment of the Balfour declaration dated November 2, 1917, in which the British government assured the Zionist movement its support. In a letter of the British foreign minister A. J. Balfour to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild (1868-1937), the foundation of a „national homestead“ for the Jews in Palestine was promised. Due to his successful work, Weizmann became chairman of the Zionist Commission in 1918 and was sent to Palestine by the British government.

oh I agree, I don't think the Holocaust is the whole story, just part of it. The Jewish link to the land of Israel was well established prior to the 1930s - I just think that the need for an independent Jewish state became much more apparent and salient after the culimination of the worst persecution of the Jews in Europe.

Apparent to A European populace who partook in Pogroms, Inquisitions, etc... perhaps.

The ENTIRE thrust of Obama's speech was to eliminate the backward looking justification for the continuation of this fighting...for all our children... let's get this thing done in this lifetime....

I am going to make another prediction... sooner or later Pal and Israelis will live peacefully as neighbors, the question is "is it after the nuclear holocaust or before."

If I didn't fear that and the interrelatedness of this conflict within the world... i'd say lock both these kids in a room with some butcher knives and go at it, and be done with it.

Human evolution up until the "modern" times has all been about one tribe versus the other... the mere fact you are here and alive means you were part of the tribe that killed and raped more efficiently.... peace out... .

"The ENTIRE thrust of Obama's speech was to eliminate the backward looking justification for the continuation of this fighting...for all our children... let's get this thing done in this lifetime.... "

Of course on the Israeli side, the backward-looking justification IS the current justification.

Hey, dudes, can you, uh, stop blowing us up? 8 years of missiles... many more years of intentional murder of civilians.

"oh I agree, I don't think the Holocaust is the whole story, just part of it. The Jewish link to the land of Israel was well established prior to the 1930s - I just think that the need for an independent Jewish state became much more apparent and salient after the culimination of the worst persecution of the Jews in Europe. "

Exactly. Retards seem to completely miss the fact - yelling "stole our land" - that the Jews had it first. Arab buildings are built ON TOP of Jewish sites. Many of the "stolen homes" were Jewish synagogues that Arabs moved in to. Not to mention Jews PAID FOR a huge chunk of the land that was taken from them (from the Turks...)

67th Street Peace between Jews, Christians & Moslems will happen. My prediction(I am borrowing this) will not be because a head of state has declared it. It will occur when the Imam, Rabbi & Priest preaches it.

On a more political note. Obama may be attempting to isolate the more radical elements of the Arab & Muslim world. Turkey, Jordan and Egypt to name a few are clearly playing a positive world influence. It could be argued the same for Saudi Arabia and some other states. The Muslim brotherhood killed Anwar Sadat. Egypt & Saudi Arabia are clearly concerned about Iranian influence in the region. The U.S. would very much like to show Egypt as the center of the Middle East.

Although it's hard to tell with secret letters, changing politicians and diplomats, and shifting economic interests (e.g. the discovery of vast amounts of petroleum in the Arabian peninsula), I think it's safe to assume that 86% of Palestine was lopped off to form Jordan BECAUSE the rest was slated for a Jewish homeland -- in other words, all of what's now considered Palestine -- and probably would have happened in the 1920s.

But then petro-alliances -- the Turkish Petroleum Company, etc. -- became more important to Britain, and policy tended to placate local Middle Eastern leaders, while exploiting local populations in oil-producing countries. Israel has served as a useful punching bag to keep those local populations focused away from their immediate problems. (And therein lies the motive for US support for Israel -- it helps keep oil cheap here.)

w67, i believe you oversimplify a bit... locking into a room is what clinton did, and while arafat got most of what could be asked for, all it caused was the intifada and a huge setback to status quo (for both sides). obama will most certainly lean very heavily on israel but my prediction is that it will cause nothing but instability.. there's a reason this problem is 'existential' -- either israel exists or it doesn't

no no... se10024... humans are very base animals.. me thinkz that bc we walk upright and can put on a suit we are different than an animal fighting for its life at the watering hole... the only difference as far as i can see (in view of the middle east conflict) is that we hold grudges.

"locking into the room" meant 1 winner. We are doing things only half assed. if you want to go civilized route.. save the peaceful citizens and take one israeli radical/ one pal radical.... put them in a cage... one comes out alive... it'll keep everyone entertained and it'll stop anyone that wants no part in the fight safe... and in the end all the radicals will kill themselves off...

simple solutions are the best :)

the problem w/ this world is that human suffering is some statistic or a number... if you see another human being's life being snuffed out with your bare hands b/c of ideological/political/religious reasons... and you let all the world see what that death looks like (with the graphic detail of a person desperately trying to hold on to life). i'd say we may become (might I say) more human?

w67, feel free not to answer if it's 2 personal, but you seem to have alluded on another thread that you came from ussr... did i read that correctly and if so, are you jewish? reason i ask is that i understand others making moral equivalency arguments, but was always fascinated with jews doing it...

I hope this isn't se10024 peparing an ad hominem response...

"I think it's safe to assume that 86% of Palestine was lopped off to form Jordan BECAUSE the rest was slated for a Jewish homeland -- in other words, all of what's now considered Palestine -- and probably would have happened in the 1920s."

And Jordan is mostly.... wait for it...

Palestinian.

Description of Ad Hominem(for se 10024)

Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Example of Ad Hominem

1. Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."

No, nyc10022, not so much.

Because when Jordan lost control of the West Bank after 1967, they encouraged its residents to cross the Jordan River to Jordan -- where they were put in Jordanian refugee camps built just for Palestinians (who were denied free movement within Jordan).

riversider, ad hominem has negative connotation as in 'attack'... i was not attacking -- that question was simply to better understand where people are coming from when making arguments. and also i apologized in advance for asking it. i agree that 'moral equivalency' should be argued on it's merits and not on background

se10024... no I am not a ussr jew (that would be ericho75), nor a jew... (although my best man was jewish) and I got sat down and taught about the jewish experience on many an occasion (from Israeli jews and muslims alike).. I was fascinated by the holocaust but more generally the suffering of humanity throughout the modern ages. Its' amazing the see the same arguments over and over again... if you think this is the first conflict over they did we did... it's gonna end up being a f- fest with killings, rapes and brutality that is so base that we'll all stare in amazement (just look at Kosovo). How easily we forget.

It's like a parent telling a kid.. don't take that first hit of crack.... there is a portion of the population that needs to take that first hit and go thru the ugliness to see the stupidity of their actions. So the question to all those not listening to Obama is... do you need to take that first hit of crack?

Riversider... gotta go.. .but I am never afraid of ad hominem attacks... but an argument or logic that getz me stumped... well I run away from those all the time :) (lick my wounds and learn from them)....

thx for clarifying, my mistake. sorry, i missed the crack analogy... other than that it's in the same sentence as obama ;) peace

w67thstreet, if I didn't worry about the effect on the general calm, I'd let your pimply ass, as well as your family, be exterminated by some murderous nut. Why not.
I first thought that you're playing a role of an asshole on this site. But no, you are a genuine article.

I'd let your pimply ass, as well as your family, be exterminated

if ever a racist comment.

beholder, please explain your last comment and specifically what your addressing. I don't understand.

you're

alanhart, I'm referring to this by w67: "If I didn't fear that and the interrelatedness of this conflict within the world... i'd say lock both these kids in a room with some butcher knives and go at it, and be done with it"

And then he explained that he was referring to the extremists on both sides of the issue ... the Jews who killed the Jewish leader, the Muslims who killed the Egyptian leader, for examples. His point was to let the extremists go after each other without dragging the majority down with them.

The door to Peace in the Middle East will be opened by Imams and Rabbis.

I doubt that Rabbis will have much of an influence - most Israelis are not religious.

I doubt that Rabbis will have much of an influence - most Israelis are not religious.

The people who feel the most extreme usually cite some religious reason. Visit the Mosques and the Temples. When hate is not being preached peace is possible. Until then , I don't hold much hope.

"extremists on both sides of the issue ... the Jews who killed the Jewish leader" -- yes jewish extremists kill jews and also have lots of babies on 'palestinian' territory (before i get flamed, no, i do not advocate expanding the settlements). palestinian extremists blow up cafes with teenagers... not quite the same things, is it?

riversider, care to name a few temples where hatred is being preached?

yes, that one jew who killed that one jewish leader...if only all those rabbis would stop preaching hate and murder in the name of god and jewish parents would stop raising their children to be martyrs...what does this have to with ny re?

Riversider, what you're saying is true about synagogues in some of the West Bank settlements (like Hebron), where I'm sure they are more belligerent toward the Palestinians. But this is a small segment of the Israeli population. I think a more fruitful strategy would be convincing the majority of Israelis that their security interests are not harmed by the formation of a Palestinian state. I don't believe that Religion (at least on the Jewish side) is central to getting anywhere with peace negotiations. On the Palestinian side, however, peaceful religious preaching would probably serve a more useful role.

SE10024, The point is the road to peace will come from Religious leaders not the political ones. This is what we need more of....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYKm7Bq1D-c

non-Jews keep telling Jews to move on, stop referring to Holocaust, relax, just move on. So non-Jews can do it again.

Peace will come from logic: arabs will finally get it that Jews cannot be killed anymore, and if/when Arabs try, they'll get their collective ass kicked.

there will never be peace. israel will always have to me a highly militarized society, they will always have to fight. arabs don't want peace with jews. grow up.

I think a more fruitful strategy would be convincing the majority of Israelis that their security interests are not harmed by the formation of a Palestinian state.

Paradoxes, Imagine you have a house and the neighbor next door does not respect your title.. insists on throwing stones over your fence , imagine you have children that might be playing in the yard...
Just thought I'd point out the psychology that has played a role here..

yes, that one jew who killed that one jewish leader.

Alex , Ever hear of the Fast of Gedeliah?

wow have to go to back Nebuchadnetzar for a relevant example, why not just bring up how jews assasinated christ -- that usually ends the argument pretty well.

jeez reaching aren't we? i was talking about rabin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

still waiting btw for examples of mainstream temples that call for killing of the infidels... and whose constituents act upon it

Building a straw man? Sorry you'll need to do this on your own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1]

monty python - now you talking... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbcyiFt5VEs

The problem with peace in the Middle East is that the Arabs don't just want the West Bank and Gaza back; they want all of Israel too. As soon as the Palestinians stop blowing teaching their children to kill they might actually have a chance to live like civilized humans. And to all, you should tune into WABC radio on Sunday night between 7-9 pm -- a great talk show host who is also a NYC trial lawyer is hosting a show and will surely touch on these issues. He's fantastic.

ad hominem and straw man in one day and all from wiki -- you are crushing me with your erudition

oops sorry riversider, here you go
Erudition is the depth, polish and breadth that is applied to education from further readings and understanding of literary works. The Latin word educare means to "lead out" from ignorance; hence an educated person has come to think critically and logically. An erudite person has both deep and broad familiarity with a certain subject, often gained through study and extensive reading of the subject's literature rather than formal scholarship.
For example, a jurist is learned, and knows the law intimately and thoroughly. A jurist who is also erudite may additionally know the history of the law in detail, as well as the laws of other cultures. Broad knowledge in the form of social Erudition is present in a literary work when its author incorporates knowledge and insights spanning many different fields. When such universal scholars are also at the forefront of several fields, they are sometimes called a polyhistor, or a polymath (though the two can mean different things. See either article for further discussion).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1OZCHixR0

Since we're doing youtube....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbwNSNLPIfw

se10024... the parent is Obama... the solution is never to take crack = have peaceful co-existence, cause the alternative is to go thru hell (crack addiction or nuclear holocaust - cause that's where we are headed... the infamous suitcase nuclear bomb) and come to the same conclusion... you shouldn't take crack ( i.e. they should live peacefully / co -existence).

i think that's a bit naive on two levels: assuming that one of the sides is interested in anything other than total destruction of the other side. the other with respect to obama's motives - realpolitic says that the main issue is iran and israel will simply be used as a bargaining chip...

Obama's speech was horrible. How dare he use the word "Palestine." I hope Israel delivers some nice air mail to Iran in the coming weeks.

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA51609

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yep. it's really refreshing to hear from the president that USA doesn't support settlements nor the oppression of the Palestine people. USA should put much more conditions on Israel if they want our support (no matter how hard they lobby). it cannot be unconditional of how they treat the Palestinians.

Good idea. Obama should also insist that the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Lebanese be investigated for their poor treatment and oppression of the Palestinians before the Israelis.

Also, so we can get reparations for the Palestinians, the Arab states should reimburse the Jews who were expelled from their lands 50 years ago (the same number of Jews were expelled from Arab countries as Palestinians from Israel) and then the Jews can use that money to turn around and give to the Palestinians.

Unfortunately the biggest shame is that the Arab peoples did nothing for their own Palestinians and used the Palestinians as pawns, mistreated them, for racial reasons, for reasons to support their own anti-democratic states and control, and to be able to blame Israel for what they themselves were even more responsible for. If only Jordan and the UN had humanitarian goals vs. wanting to fight a political war with Israel, the Palestinians would be in much better shape today.

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http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/sol123/palestinemap.jpg

Actually I kind of like this map:
http://quranbible.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/middle_east_951.jpg
which I just found by googling "middle east map israel"

Look how tiny Israel is surrounded by the huge arab states. How can they take less land than this.

And then zoom in, look at all this land that Israel captured from a warring Egypt, and then gave back!
http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/maps/sinai.html

w67thstreet
Human evolution up until the "modern" times has all been about one tribe versus the other... the mere fact you are here and alive means you were part of the tribe that killed and raped more efficiently.... peace out... .

No you sick pig.

w67thstreet
"locking into the room" meant 1 winner. We are doing things only half assed. if you want to go civilized route.. save the peaceful citizens and take one israeli radical/ one pal radical.... put them in a cage... one comes out alive... it'll keep everyone entertained and it'll stop anyone that wants no part in the fight safe... and in the end all the radicals will kill themselves off...

You sick pig, I hope you get locked in a room.

How can there be a moral equivilance to building houses in Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) to launching rockets and blowing up malls, pizza parlors, etc?

How come 1M arabs can live in Israel, but 600k Jews cant live in the so-called West Bank.

How come there are Arab members of the Kennesset but Jews can not set foot in Saudi Arabia and the only religion to be practised there is Islam.

How dare they demand they "need" more and more accomodations in Europe when they give zero rights to Christians- Copts in Egypt are being persecuted on a daily basis and its just getting worse.

I dont see at all the reciprocity that Obama is talking about from THEIR part - we just give and they take.

NYC is as good a place as any for a juicy debate on the Arab-Israeli problem. Of the many I've had I remember one such occasion when I was presenting my arguments in a perfectly logical and inoffensive way (of course), at which point the woman I was "debating" interrupted me and demanded to know if I had ever been personally oppressed. Ahh, the tactics of debate. I asked her why that was relevant, then asked her if "oppression" included having my childhood home in suburban midwestish-land vandalized with antisemitic graffiti such as swastikas and those lovely caricatures of jews with exaggerated "jewish" features. Cuz then, I guess, yes.

I suppose my point is that moral equivalence is entirely in the eye of the beholder. And the ability to listen is elusive in this fun, emotional debate.

Now back to that lying, cheating broker...

good point yournamehere... let's get back to nyc re... but I always like to have the last word.

beholder.. my father's side lost all his eldest brothers to the other tribe and both my parents suffered greatly during the war. my brother and I were named for his two eldest brothers. Does this give me cred? When I married a member of the other tribe, both my parents welcomed her... there's a lesson in there for you.

So back to my original rant about backward looking / hating zealots on both sides. If you think i would send my precious son in 15yrs (w/o ever knowing the "gay" joy of over-renovating his 1300 sq.ft (overpriced) 1bdrm condo/coop) to risk his life much less a drop of his blood bc zealots on both sides miss this great opportunity to settle this thing, well you don't know how much my wife and I love our children. Think about it, how many more black (minority) presidents w/ a background that straddles the muslim and european world will we have in our lifetimes and is focused on this issue?

se10024... aren't there elements on both sides that want total annihilation? naive? The number one goal of american policy is to live in peace with the rest of the world w/o the threat of nuclear/biological warfare hitting american soil... the rest of the countries/religions/people/issues, including Israel can take a hike. That's the mid-west American in me..... listen to Obama's speech again.... (the spreading human rights = is code for don't fuck w/ America) So, if that means peace between Israel and Pal so that we can get the populace of the Middle east to focus on the nuclear proliferation about to start in Iran, so be it. One of these days, the nightly bomb runs (w/ US bombs and F16s) into Iran is gonna miss the target and it ain't gaining you any support w/ the Bin laden crowd.

Some random thoughts b/f I sign off for onerec/beholder...
1) your beef w/ the Pal is minor. The last I heard the majority of the jews were killed in Germany (I believe the 6MM is undercounted), so if you pop off 7MM germans... you guys can call it even; then you may want to pop off the Vatican... they really weren't your friends in the middle ages....are you afraid of picking a fight with bigger prey? or are your fights only limited to fights w/ tanks vs. stones? See how quickly it degenerates.....naive little boys....
2) for a people who understand the pain of racial / religious persecution, I don't remember Israel dropping paratroopers into Somali, Sudan, kosovo? WTF? Yep, it was the US for the most part.
3) You are losing the PR war..... (this from a supporter of Israel, imagine how this will play out in the Mid-west where a bagel is a 30 minute drive?);
4) just remember, my biggest fear is that as we get close to getting this settled, a radical (god forbid a rabid American israeli supporter) pops off our President... could you imagine the f' fest the world would see?

Like all my late nite talks w/ people on both sides of this issue.... just order a new round let's talk about the mets or NYC RE... a topic both sides can speak about w/o resorting to blows..... :)

Peace for my children.