Israel is losing its “credibility” on the Palestine issue because it’s not serious about a two-state solution, U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly said Tuesday, in an interview with Channel 2, an Israeli news network. Obama’s comments are being viewed as a sharp retort to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance on the Palestinian state. Netanyahu, while campaigning…
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Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.
allison1050 June 3rd, 2015 at 08:02
not just the president but the many other countries that have said the same thing about Israel never having had intentions of honest negotiations.
burqa June 3rd, 2015 at 19:37
The history of negotiations with the Palestinians has been marked by a dedication to violence by the Palestinians, which they refuse to abandon.
They have not kept their end of the land-for-peace deal that got them autonomy.
Bill Clinton brought them together with the Israelis at the Wye River conference and when the Palestinians were offered just about everything they wanted, all they did was ask for more while offering nothing in return.
In negotiations, the Israelis have kept their agreements to trade land for peace, at Camp David and in the one where the Palestinians got autonomy in Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians have not kept their end.
Bunya June 4th, 2015 at 10:52
And for good reason. Social and political developments in Europe convinced Jews they needed their own country, and what better place to establish it than in what they considered their homeland. So in 1947, the United Nations voted to split the land into two countries.
.
The UN partition promised 56 percent of British Palestine for the Jewish state, with Israel possessing 77 percent — everything except the West Bank and the eastern quarter of Jerusalem (controlled by Jordan), as well as the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt). It left Israelis with a state, but not Palestinians.
.
In other words, there are over 700,000 Palestinian refugees today because 650,000 Jews forced them off their land.
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 04:57
Some of that is right, some is wrong.
Israel was the re- establishment of the Jewish state. They had been moving there for many decades and when Arabs selling the land found out they were Jews, they were charged vastly inflated prices for wasteland. But still, by the time Israel was founded, they had purchased a great deal of the land fair and square.
The UN partition envisioned a Palestinian state, and had they accepted not only the UN mandate, but Israel’s offer of peace at the beginning, they would have had their own country.
But no, their hatred of the Jews and their blood lust drove them to war.
The Arab countries encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to abandon their land, and about a million of them did so.
At the same time, you omit that the Arab countries evicted Jews from their lands and homes in those other Arab countries, but actions against Jews get a pass from bigots.
Yes, some Arab land was taken by the Israelis, but not that much by comparison with what was taken from the Jews who were evicted.
In America, if you abandon real estate and fail to pay taxes on it, you’ll lose it. It will be auctioned off on the courthouse steps. The Palestinians abandoned their land and were stuck in horrid concentration camps by their Arab benefactors.
The evicted Jews, on the other hand, went to Israel or elsewhere and thrived.
When Israel was born, they asked for peace but the Arabs chose war and they and the Palestinian Arabs attacked Israel and got creamed.
They have continued to attack them and have continued to get creamed ever since.
The Palestinians never tried nonviolence, their hatred for the Jews blinded them, just as hatred for Jews blinds other bigots who try to justify terrorism and are willing to abandon any commitment to peace and nonviolence they once had. This is what the poison of bigotry does to people.
What they don’t realize is throughout history, every nation that persecuted the Jews has been destroyed. The Palestinians and other Arabs have been on a losing streak for nearly 70 years. They were able to get away with massacring Jews in Palestine before, but not after the foundation of Israel. The Palestinians will continue to bring destruction and misery upon themselves until they abandon their hatred and turn to peace and nonviolence – values that we on the Left have long held high. Unfortunately, some hate Jews so much they abandon these principles that worked so well in our own civil rights movement as they worked for Gandhi and Desmond Tutu.
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 05:09
Never?
Have you forgotten the scene in the Rose Garden with Jimmy Carter, Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat when they signed the Camp David Accords? Israel traded land for peace and delivered on what they promised.
Less public, but now known are negotiations on the down-low between Israel and Jordan for peace that likewise has held for decades.
Israel has concluded negotiations for all kinds of things since their founding and their credit is pretty good, which is why countries still trade with them or do other deals of mutual interest.
The reason the Palestinians have autonomy in Gaza and the West Bank is because of land-for-peace negotiations where, once again, Israel kept their end of the bargain.
The Palestinians have not kept theirs.
At the Wye River negotiations that Bill Clinton brought about, Arafat was offered just about everything he demanded, but he could not take yes for an answer, and just kept making more demands.
Hirightnow June 3rd, 2015 at 09:10
“losing credibility”?
ing?!?!
Budda June 3rd, 2015 at 09:28
Israel has been getting a pass for their aggressive warring for years. Citing ‘scripture’ to justify it is laughable to the rest of the world.
tracey marie June 3rd, 2015 at 12:50
In the Middle East it is normal.
bpollen June 4th, 2015 at 03:47
And their religious texts make it clear that they stole the land from the people who were there before the Jews left Egypt.
crc3 June 3rd, 2015 at 10:33
This is not a surprise because Netanyahu is a right wing power hungry war monger. Obama speaks the truth yet again!
Terry "Death to Equality" Xu June 4th, 2015 at 00:50
The world needs a lot more people like Netanyahu, especially in comfortable first world countries
Gadea June 3rd, 2015 at 18:00
When has Israel had any real credibility when it comes to Gaza, the Palestinian people, etc.?
burqa June 3rd, 2015 at 18:40
How about when they gave them more rights and opportunity than Jews have had in Palestine?
Gadea June 3rd, 2015 at 23:46
Israel has never been right, about the way it treats non Jews in Israel. That includes the Palestinian people,
Bedouins, recently arrived African immigrants.
Israel has generally been brutal, inhumane to non Jews in Israel. What Israel has done and continues to do to the Palestinian people is horrible.
Occupation 101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wms0b4zwvuQ
Adam Black June 4th, 2015 at 16:00
Hypocrite much?
Its been Israeli policy to take in African migrants even past the point it creates social problems.
Its been Egypt’s policy to shoot them on sight, dead ( for 10 years ) .
So maybe you should be outraged at Egypt for its genocidal policies toward Black Africans. ( Sudan Too )
They wouldn’t be fleeing to Israel if it wasn’t better for them.
( and yeah, Israel is a dick to Bedouins, who are loyal Israelis )
OldLefty June 4th, 2015 at 16:17
There has always been a lot of racism in Israel.
Just as there is Saudi against non Arabs.
Gadea June 5th, 2015 at 00:54
Israel’s New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPxv4Aff3IA
Gadea June 5th, 2015 at 01:02
Thank you for admitting that the Bedouins also come under the Israeli grinding boot. The way that Israel has treated the Palestinians, strangling them to death,
in full view of the entire world is obscene. Israel can no longer hide this, nor deny it. That is why there is now a blacklist of pro Palestinian college students, called Canary Mission, as reported by Haaretz. Since Israel cannot hide the ugly truth, they will try to shut up the college students by threatening their livelyhood.
Israel is not right, has never been right, about anything that it does when it comes to the Palestinian people.
As for the African immigrants, wants them out by any means necessary. So stop lying, nobody believes you anymore. You can hop on one foot and the other till kingdom come, nobody believes you anymore.
Gadea June 5th, 2015 at 01:16
You’re the hypocrite, Adam. If you want to say that Israel has been fair to the Palestinian people. Israel has been anything but. The cruelty towards the Palestinian people is common knowledge, not to be denied.
How can it be that any person that can prove they are Jewish to the satisfaction of the Israeli authorities can reside in Israel. The sepharadic Jews to one side and the Ashkenazi to the other side, but they can live, work, go to school in Israel. However, Palestinian people, that have lived in Israeli/Palestine for generations are treated like the scum of the earth. It’s not right, it has never been right, it is wrong.
Gadea June 6th, 2015 at 00:36
An Israeli bulldozer destroys a children’s playground near Bethlehem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoczZtOTn4g
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 04:33
He is not a hypocrite. He accurately described historic fact you are ignorant of. There is an extraordinary history of Israel covertly conducting airlifts to bring in immigrants from all across Africa. They sent in airliners to pick them up in some countries and took them out by ship from others.
Really, you need to brush up on “the right of return” that Israel recognizes for all Jews.
Either you just haven’t read the history or someone has lied to you.
I think it is both, and the latter is your source of Palestinian propaganda that does not address the issues and points I have raised.
I used to have a lot more sympathy for the Palestinians, thinking that the terrorists were outliers and did not represent the Palestinians as a whole. I know Palestinian here who are wonderful, peaceful people. I would not say the terrorists represent all Palestinians, but they represent large proportion of them. That is why Hamas swept elections there (and cancelled future elections) and is why the Islamic State is growing there as well.
The Palestinians have rejected peace, they rejected a nation offered by the UN, they rejected deals that gave all their demands. These are not peaceful people. They hate Jews so much they will bring destruction on themselves and they are so damned stupid they do stuff like put rocket launchers in schools, knowing they are bringing death on their own children. People that cold-hearted don’t deserve my support.
When they turn to peace and decide they want to be a responsible member of the community of nations, they should get their own country, but not now. They’rte just not ready for prime time.
I gave many reasons which you were unable to rebut that made that point.
Gadea June 7th, 2015 at 01:00
Israel is a great nation. However, Israel is completely wrong with respect to what it has done to the Palestinian people. You cannot hide the sun with your hand.
burqa June 4th, 2015 at 20:25
There is certainly room to blame Israel for a number of things. Would you care to issue an opinion comparing life for Muslims in Israel with Jews in Gaza and the West Bank?
I addressed your post directly and would appreciate you do the same. Otherwise we just talk past each other.
I prefer to engage where we address each other’s points and counterpoints.
Above my reply to your post you will see other points I have to make.
I have long supported the Palestinians’ effort to gain a homeland, but they show no signs of being interested in or capable of being a responsible member of the community of nations.
I also believe that had they tried nonviolent tactics they would have had their country decades ago. But they have never even given it a try. They are not and have never been oriented toward peace.
Heard the latest? They have once again started trouble with more unprovoked missiles launched in an effort to spawn terror.
Gadea June 5th, 2015 at 00:18
What happened during the Nazi Holocaust was horrific, a shameful chapter in human history. It should have never taken place, ask AH should have been stopped from slaughtering so many innocent human beings. That was wrong and nothing that can be said or done will ever make up for it. But that does not make what Israel has done to the Palestinian people right. The Palestinian people were not to blame for what that despicable monster AH did during the Nazi Holocaust.
Yet they have paid the price with their own blood and that of their children. Whatever you say, and you probably know, places, dates, time history in much more specific detail than I do, Israel is not right.
Israel has never been right when it comes to the Palestinian people, not once. The pictures, videos don’t lie.
burqa June 5th, 2015 at 22:08
The Palestinians cannot be responsible for what someone else did. Also, it is important to realize both sides are deserving of criticism. It’s just a question of proportion.
While the Palestinians can’t be held responsible for what Hitler did in Europe, they certainly are responsible for the alliance between the Grand Mufti and Hitler.
Hatred of the Jews and mass murder of them by Arabs goes way back. In modern times, in the early 20th century it seems to have been an Arab tradition to be whipped into a Jew-hating rage and for crowds to invade Jewish areas during the Nebi-Moussa festivities.
When the Arab Revolt broke out in the 30s, there had already been a number of massacres of Jews.
In 1941 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem went to Italy to pal around with Mussolini and then on to Berlin, where he cavorted with Hitler for the rest of the war. The Axis promised support for an independent Palestine and the Arabs contributed troops to Hitler’s war machine. The Jews, however, contributed troops to the Allies.
In 1944, the German high command approved a plan to spark a revolt in Palestine and parachuted the Grand Mufti’s right-hand man, Hassan Salameh and several Nazi paratroopers into Palestine. Their mission was to poison wells of the Jews and when the Brits captured them and the poison, they said it was enough to kill at least 250,000 people.
Salameh is significant, not only because he murdered Jews, but also because it was his son, Ali Hassan Salameh who planned the Black September murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, airline hijackings and other terrorism.
Now, the Palestinians can no longer get away with mass murder of Jews. They are propagandized to view the Jews as weak along with the old bigotry and this blinds them to the fact that they keep losing. They need to figure out that Israel will continue to defeat them and they will continue to bring destruction upon themselves until they choose the path of peace.
There is a better way – the way of nonviolence. It worked for Gandhi, Tutu and Martin Luther King. The Israelis have no weapon to counteract nonviolence, peaceful protest and peaceful civil disobedience. If, for example, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians just sat down in the streets of Tel Aviv, the Israelis could do nothing about it, but have their lives disrupted. Business would be brought to a halt and the Israelis would not have enough jail space to house them or enough food to feed them.
Peace and nonviolence are the way, Gadea.
Think about it.
Gadea June 5th, 2015 at 22:27
That is what I said. But the Palestinians have been made to pay the price for what the despicable Nazis did.
Most people will agree that is true, now. Before few people would have agreed but now they do. I really can’t believe that you or anyone else would really think that the Palestinian people s should be held responsible for what a Grand Mufti and the monster of Austria agreed to. That is ridiculous. The Jewish people have been victims or pogroms for centuries that is wrong. That should have never been the case. I believe that the USA should accept all Jewish people that want to live here.
But my point is that Israel, the Jewish nation has a well documented history of treating the Palestinians with brutality, inhumanely and Israel is wrong for behaving like that.
History of Israel:Stolen Land of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKGA48MptIY
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 01:54
The Grand Mufti was the leader of the Palestinian Arabs. What he did was just part of a much longer pattern.
I don’t much care what other people say because I am very well acquainted with the history.
The persecution of the Jews is nothing new, of course, but what the Palestinians are finding out is they can’t do it any more without paying a heavy price.
Yes, the Israelis have done wrong, plenty of it.
But I’ll ask you again – what do you think it is like for a Jew who wants to just live in peace in Gaza or on the West Bank?
Gadea June 7th, 2015 at 00:49
I hope that the people of other nations do not hold ordinary American citizens responsible for the decisions of our leaders.
Gadea June 5th, 2015 at 23:56
Do you regard the Israel, U.S. financed attack on Gaza during Cast Lead peaceful & non violent? Do you regard Israel’s use of White Phosphorous on a civilian population peaceful and non violent burqa?
Do you feel that Israel’s attack on Lebanon with so many dead civilians to be Israel’s way of winning hearts & minds?
Israel does not have a leg to stand on when it complains about anything the Palestinians do.
It used to be, that countries could lie all the time about the heinous crimes they commit against innocent people. But now, in the age of the internet, that has become a lot more difficult. Because anyone with a cellphone camera can transmit the images of their brutality, of the hospitals, schools bombed across the world.The bodies of the dead kids appear on the front page of the NYTIMES even before they are buried. You are trying to deny the truth. That Israel is a brutal power that has ethnic cleansed the Palestinian people on the American dime.
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 04:13
An attack can hardly be called nonviolent.
The Palestinians brought the last war on themselves. After they had fired hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians Israel counterattacked.
We just saw the same thing on a smaller scale on May 26 when the Palestinians fired rockets at civilians in Ashdod. So Israel counterattacked on the 27th, the same day that Amnesty International released a report that said during the last war Hamas had carried out summary executions of prisoners and had employed torture using things like hot metal and acid to burn prisoners. They were using a hospital to do it.
But according to you, the Israelis forced the Palestinians to torture people with acid.
White phosphorous will kill just like TNT will. The difference, which I am sure you will avoid discussing, is we have plenty of evidence, especially in this time, as you point out, that Israel has made efforts to reduce civilian casualties. The Palestinians have not done so.
You can not look at what they have done and fail to see that they have mainly tried to maximize civilian casualties ever since the PLO was founded, or as far back in history as you want to go, whether it is the Arab Revolt, the massacres on holidays I mentioned, or hundreds of terrorist attacks I could list for you.
So I think you should reconsider the following statement, because it is an admission of blindness:
Gadea: “Israel does not have a leg to stand on when it complains about anything the Palestinians do.”
You must know very little about Hamas or the history of the conflict. For Hamas, a good place to start is Matthew Levitt’s HAMAS: Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006). It is an organization dedicated to war crimes and terrorism, as were the previous organizations of the Palestinians such as the PLO, Black September, PFLP, PFLP_GC, and others.
Look, Gadea, I’d be happy to discuss this, but you are not responding to the points I am making. I am responding to yours, but rather than have a discussion with me, you just talk past me. We would have a much more fruitful exchange if you were to directly address my points.
I do not think you really think it is justified for someone to walk into an elementary school and murder children, but that is what you have done. I gave you the attack and your reply was there was no blame for the attackers.
You can’t very well be upset with children killed by one side and turn around and say there is no blame for those who murder children on the other side.
Further, I have not said anything that denied the truth. It is a false accusation and if you can’t back it up you must withdraw the charge.
By the same token, you can’t avoid the ‘H’ word if you are going to criticize one side for ethnic cleansing and fail to criticize the other for doing even worse. Arabs not only may live in Israel, but they have far more rights to conduct business and participate in society than Jews do in Gaza or the West Bank.
burqa June 3rd, 2015 at 19:12
I don’t care for Netanyahu but I can hardly blame the Israelis for not seeking a two-state solution, at least not now.
I say that because I don’t see any inclination on the other side towards peace.
Before Netanyahu, the Palestinians were offered just about all of their demands and they kept turning down such Instead they just issue more demands.
For decades the Palestinians have shown themselves uninterested in peace. They have never tried adopting nonviolence.
When the Palestinians finally got to elect a government, they elected representatives of an organization dedicated to terrorism and war crimes.
Further, the Palestinians, since getting autonomy, have not shown themselves capable of providing even the most basic services a government needs to provide.
The corruption of their leaders is profound and they spend vast sums on weapons, explosives, ammunition, tunnels to conduct attacks, not to mention what gets siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts of the leaders.
In the years they have had autonomy, the establishment of good schools, sanitation services or a business climate that would foster growth have been low priorities.
Their justice system is a horror show and torture and summary executions are common.
If you are not a heterosexual Muslim male then you don’t have equal rights and will not in the foreseeable future.
I have long supported a Palestinian state and still do, but they just aren’t ready for prime-time.
Gadea June 6th, 2015 at 00:30
Whatever the Palestinians do, they are the victims and the Israeli’s are the oppressors.
Jews were the victims of the despicable Adolf Hitler and
also of hatred towards Jews going back centuries.
Jews deserved plenty of help, compassion and everything that could be done
to try to make this up to them, should have been done.
That was obscene, wrong and should never have happened.
But evicting Palestinians from their land in order to
give it to the Jews was not the way to resolve that situation.
That was wrong as well.
Denying Palestinians access to clean water, medicine, ordinary food stuffs even crayons, pasta, is just so wrong. It is hard to understand, how Israel thinks that is fair, just.
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 02:29
Gadea: “Whatever the Palestinians do, they are the victims and the Israeli’s are the oppressors.”
That was the case when Palestinians murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics?
How about when the Palestinians massacred children at the elementary school at Ma’alot?
Look, I could give you a hundred such examples. For 15 or more years I have been compiling a database on espionage and terrorism.
What the Palestinians are the victim of is their hatred of the Jews and their thirst for blood.
When Israel was formed, the Israelis pleaded with them for peace. Right then and there the Palestinians would have had their own country, but did they choose peace?
No, they chose war because of their hatred of the Jews and their thirst for blood..
They got their ass kicked and even worse, their allies in the Arab countries convinced over a million of them to abandon their homes in Palestine and those allies put them in concentration camps and later, after getting their asses kicked again by the Jews, the Arab countries decided to use the Palestinians as a weapon in which the Arab countries would fight Israel to the last Palestinian.
At the same time, the Arab countries evicted about a million or so Jews from their homes and property in Arab countries. Those Jews were taken into Israel and they flourished.
About a million Palestinians willingly abandoned their homes to move out while about a million Jews were forcibly evicted against their will from theirs.
Don’t you think the Jews should get their homes and property back?
When the PLO was formed, the Arabs had East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Gaza, the West Bank and Sinai. If it were not for their blinding hatred of the Jews and their thirst for bloodshed, the Palestinians would have had their own country.
The reason there is an embargo on Palestinian territories is because they will not stop the terrorist attacks and will not stop importing weapons and explosives to do so. Again, it is their hatred of the Jews and their thirst for blood that brings further disaster on themselves.
________________
Gadea: “But evicting Palestinians from their land in order to
give it to the Jews was not the way to resolve that situation.”
Isn’t that what has happened to Jews who were living in Gaza and the West Bank?
Sorry, but the reestablishment of the nation of Israel was the right thing to do. They already owned much of the land where the nation was founded upon. They bought it fair and square, paying exorbitant prices for wasteland over many decades until then.
Other land was abandoned by the Arabs who lived there.
Gadea, in America, if you own a piece of land and abandon it and fail to pay the taxes on it, guess what happens? They auction it off on the courthouse steps, that’s what.
In the settlement that established Israel, the Palestinians had land set aside for their own country and they forfeited it.
Why?
Because of their hatred for the Jews and their thirst for blood, that’s why.
___________
Look, the Jews are not going to get their homes and land they were evicted from in the Arab countries. Neither are the Palestinians going to get all the land and homes they voluntarily abandoned. Yes, some of it was taken from them, just as even more was taken from the Jews.
Israel is established and isn’t going anywhere.
The Palestinians have been offered just about everything they demanded and all they do is demand more. They have not kept their end of the land-for-peace bargains they made previously.
Until they get over their hatred of the Jews and their thirst for blood, they will continue to bring death and destruction on themselves.
Gadea June 7th, 2015 at 01:06
What happened during the Munich Olympics was terrible. 11 innocent human beings died, that is horrific.
When you oppress a people, take over their land, kick them out, give them no hope,deny them clean water,
bulldoze their homes, forbid them to even fish in the waters off the coast by shooting at the fishermen that cast their nets, they fight back. And unfortunately, things like the terrible incident that took place during the Munich Olympics take place.
Gadea June 7th, 2015 at 01:08
UK Jewish MP Gerald Kaufman:
Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8
burqa June 6th, 2015 at 02:41
And to add to my post, below, the reason the Palestinians are denied the things you list and more is because their hatred of the Jews has led them to take the money they have been given and instead of investing in schools, infrastructure, reconstruction, health care and the rest, they have spent it on concrete for tunnels and paying people to dig them. They’ve spent the money on weapons, explosives, training terrorists and their crappy little army. More of it has been siphoned off by stunningly corrupt officials.
Good grief, if you were an executive with Marriott, would you build a hotel in Gaza?
If you were a developer, would you build a seaside resort there?
You’d be crazy to do so because those fools would use them to fire rockets at Israel and get your hotel or resort blown up or use to imprison and torture people to death or use them to train terrorists to murder civilians.