Bin Laden: It's about Palestine, stupid.
Bush's outrageous speech to the Israeli Knesset has been attacked by the Democrats as an outrageous slur against Barack Obama. It has now also been condemned by Osama bin Laden as a typical example of the way that US foreign policy is skewered towards Israel.
I said at the time that I would be interested to see if Bush, whilst celebrating Israel's 60th birthday, made any mention of the Nakba, the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians which also occurred at this time 60 years ago. Of course, Bush did no such thing."We will continue, God willing, the fight against the Israelis and their allies ... and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on Earth," he declared in a 10-minute audio message posted on an Islamist website. The tape's authenticity could not be verified but it bore the hallmarks of al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media arm.
"The participation of western leaders with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the west backs this Jewish occupation of our land, and that they stand in the Israeli trench against us," he said, claiming that the Palestinian issue had motivated the 9/11 attacks on the US.
He was too busy making his outrageous smears against Barack Obama - and comparing him to the appeasers of Nazi Germany - to even consider mentioning a day which is infamous in the Palestinian calendar.
There was a day when the US used to pretend that it was in the role of "honest broker" in the Israel-Palestine dispute but that pretense has long stopped, and under Bush it has actually gone so far pro-Israeli as to make a mockery of US involvement in the dispute at all. The US are no longer there to act as referee, they are there to make sure Israel can do what she wants and that the rest of the international community don't interfere.
It's simply scandalous and it's astonishingly dangerous, fueling Muslim anger and resentment towards the US as well as Israel.
"Peace talks that started 60 years ago are just meant to deceive the idiots," he [bin Laden] said. "After all the destruction and the killings ... your leaders talk about principles. This is unbearable. You describe Palestinian organisations as terrorists and you boycott them and punish them while Israelis are killing civilians, women and children."The fact that Israel has been unable in sixty years to find a single "partner for peace" amongst the Palestinians, as she continues to build on and steal Palestinian land, makes many of us cynical about just how serious Israel is about finding this mythical "partner for peace" which she claims to be constantly searching for.
What's certain is that the Israel/Palestine dispute is the number one issue on the Arab street and a major recruiting tool for al Qaeda.
The US is irredeemably biased towards the Israelis, that's simply a matter of fact. That's why the US is unfit to act as a referee in this dispute as they have long ago stopped pretending that they are an honest broker or even a fair participant. They are neither. They are there to ensure that Israel can break international law with impunity.Bush's speech in the Knesset on Thursday lavished praise on Israel and excoriated its enemies - Hamas, Hizbullah in Lebanon, as well as Iran and Syria. But he barely mentioned the Palestinians, who were that same day marking the "nakba" (catastrophe) they suffered as the Jewish state won its independence in May 1948.
It will have confirmed many Arabs in their conviction that the US is irredeemably biased in favour of Israel.
It's utterly disgraceful and it's incredibly dangerous. For Israel and for the US.
One day this dispute will be sorted and we all know what the end game will roughly look like. It will look like UN resolution 242. However, we will never get to that point as long as bad presidents, like president Bush, spend all their time telling the Israelis what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.
The irony is that president Bush is actually a terrible friend of Israel, as a good friend would be giving them a very different message from the one being delivered by Bush.
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7 comments:
Who has heard that in the 1930's Bagdad every 3rd citizen was a native Jew? The Sefardi (Safrati) Jews have a 400 year old history and the Mizrahi Jews over 2,500 year old history in the Middle East - outside the location of the state of Israel (Palestine).
Here's the statistics regarding not ONLY the expelsion of Jews from various Moslim countries in the last 60 years that Israel has been an independent state, but also numbers expelled from the Europe in a longer time interval. The Jews are no settlers of colonialism:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm
60 years of survival. This is statistics, not Zionism. When the military means have lacked the power, it is now a time of a media war to spit on the Jews and curse the Jewish Scriptures. Both the Old and New Testament were written by Jews. Although Jasser Arafat in his books claimed that there never was any Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and that Jesus was not a Jew, he could not deceive the honest spectator
As a matter of fact, the population of Arabs (my beloved friends and brothers, just like the Jews, our common fathers) under the Israeli government was increased ten-fold (10X) in only 57 years. This is close to the world record for any tribe, nation, tongue or culture on the whole planet at the same time interval. The Sefardi Jews were expelled from Spain in the very date when Christoffer Colombo lifted up his anchors and sailed away from Spain. The Jews had to leave and their possessions were stolen. In the case of the Mizrahi, the Jews have lived for millennia all around the Middle East since the first exile of Israel 500 B.C., in what are now Muslim-dominated countries. While much has been made of the 700,000 Palestinians having been made homeless with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, it's peculiar that there is no official recognition of their Jewish counterparts. A greater number of Jews - some 856,000 - were forcefully expelled from Arab countries after the creation of the State of Israel, their homes forfeited, their belongings seized. They became refugees, migrating to Israel, mainly. But they did not spoke any Hebrew but Arabic and Farsi (Persian).
The Second Intifada is called the Oslo War. Israel has been forced to damage the very infrastructure she has constructed and administrated while hunting the weapons from the milittant "freedom fighters". Between 1967-1993 roads, system of siewers (gutters, ditches), electricity supply, water supply, schools, health care system, and social welfare system to the West Bank and Gaza. Even for the Arab citizens of Israel, ideal was that everyody gets the same salary for the same job, with the same social benefits. This is stated in the law, officially. In contrast, even the official law in Jordan which has the peace treaty with Israel, it is forbidden for a Jew to live in the country. The health care services have been free for the Arab population, only a portion of the price of the drugs must have been paid by the patients. Under the administrations of Great Britain (1920-1947) or Jordan (1948-1967), no universities were established for the Arabs in the country. Also, an independent newspaper has appeared in Jerusalem since 1969, which has never been put under a censorship.
The Palestinian life expectancy increased from 48 to 72 years in 1967-1995. The death rate decreased by over 2/3 in 1970-1090 and the Israeli medical campaigns decreased the child deat rate from a level of 60 per 1000 in 1968 to 15 per 1000 in 2000. (An analogous figure was 64 in Iraq, 40 in Egypt, 23 in Jordan, and 22 in Syria in 2000). During 1967-1988 the amount of comprehensive schoold and second level polytechnic institutes for the Arabs was increased by 35%. During 1970-1986 the proportion of Palestinian women at the West Bank and Gaza not having gone to school decreased from 67 % to 32 %. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in West Bank and Gaza increased in 1968-1991 BKT from 165 US dollars to 1715 dollars (compare with 1630$ in Turkey, 1440$ in Tunis, 1050$ in Jordan, 800$ in Syria, 600$ in Egypt. and 400$ in Yemen).
One-fourth of the judgements of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations strike Israel. Out of the incidences dealt in the Security Counsil one-third is having to do with Israel. I think this resembles the hysteria seen in the Black Plague in Europe, when the European Jews were accused of the pandemia and burned alive.
Pauli.Ojala@gmail.com
Helsinki, Finland
What's your point? All I am asking for is that Israel obeys international law and vacates land that does not belong to it as specified by Res 242. Do you agree or disagree with that?
All I am asking for is that Israel obeys international law and vacates land that does not belong to it as specified by Res 242.
Isreal has vacated land acquired in 1967, per the resolution. What you of course fail to point out is that this resolution has not been adhered to by other parties in the conflict.
(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force
The paragraph marked (i) explicitly excludes the words "the" and "all" from the phrase "territories occupied". The reasons for that deliberate omission will be clear to anyone who has read up on the history of the resolution. Further, given the paragraph marked (ii), it is clear that there is no recognition in the region for the territorial integrity of Israel.
US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967, and one of the drafters of the resolution stated the following:
Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to 'secure and recognized borders', which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949.
Israel has withdrawn from Egyptian and Jordanian territories which those countries maintained a claim over. Syria has refused to negotiate a settlement to the Golan (which Syria acquired in 1948) just as it has refused to recognize Israel's right to a secure existence.
Claims that there would be some kind of peace in the middle east if only the evil Israelis would meet your interpretation of 242, regardless of whether or not other parties choose to abide by it, are just plain ridiculous.
As far as to whether or not the Israelis are in violation of 242, one who reads the resolution as it was written (not as you choose to interpret it) and as those who drafted the resolution have stated their intentions, then it is hard to cry foul against those evil Israelis who along with the US are responsible for everything that has gone wrong in your life and the world at large.
Isreal has vacated land acquired in 1967, per the resolution.
Israel continues to occupy that land controlling water, air space and entry to and from that land. If you are seriously arguing that Israel has complied with Res 242 then you must be reading Little Green Footballs or some other insane pro-Israeli web sites.
The paragraph marked (i) explicitly excludes the words "the" and "all" from the phrase "territories occupied". The reasons for that deliberate omission will be clear to anyone who has read up on the history of the resolution.
I am well aware of the arguments that pro-Israelis have concocted over the years regarding the missing "all" and the "the" argument.
However, the resolution begins "emphasising the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" making those points rather moot.
it is clear that there is no recognition in the region for the territorial integrity of Israel.
Oh dear, you are showing that you are rather new to this argument, Jason. The people who refuse to define Israel's borders are the Israelis themselves and they are the only nation on Earth to demand recognition without saying what area they are asking to be recognised within.
That's why claims that the evil Syrians won't recognise Israel are so stupid. Which Israel are they being asked to recognise? Israel with the West Bank and Gaza? With the Golan Heights? The Sha'aba Farms? Which?
Until Israel decides where it's borders are, and lets everyone else in on the secret, then country's like Syria - which has parts of it's land occupied by Israel and acquired through war - will not recognise Israel. It would be very surprising if they did.
Arguing 242 with you is beyond pointless, since apparently you will only choose the interpretation that suits you, and completely ignore what it actually says, the negotiations that took place to form the wording, and what those who actually wrote it state that it means.
All this is out there. I can only assume you've read it and chose to reject it, apparently knowing better than those who wrote the document. As this is the case, arguing it is pointless.
Arguing 242 with you is beyond pointless, since apparently you will only choose the interpretation that suits you, and completely ignore what it actually says, the negotiations that took place to form the wording, and what those who actually wrote it state that it means.
Jason, I've told you before that I have been arguing this subject on the newsgroups for years. You - and I could tell this from the way you presented it as if you'd dug up a diamond - have stumbled upon one of the most tedious of all the Zionist arguments and one which makes utterly no sense.
The preamble provides the context in which the resolution must be viewed. It states very clearly, "Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war".
"Emphasizing" - that is stressing - the fact that land gained by war cannot legally be retained.
It is ludicrous to argue - and it shows the level of desperation amongst Zionists that this is what they are left with - that the UN would emphasize the illegality of retaining land gained by war and then proceed to leave loopholes allowing such a thing to be done in the very resolution in which they had stated the illegality of such an action.
Likewise it is utterly pointless to bring up what the people who wrote the resolution say they meant as the resolution was the subject of much negotiation and the compromise reached allowed the missing "the" because the preamble had already taken care of the point.
People who have lost these arguments over resolution drafts always change their stance after the resolution has been passed and claim it meant something different. What matters is what they said before the resolution was passed not after as it's what they were saying before which people voted on. For example before the passing of 1441 Blair made a great deal out of the fact that it did not contain automaticity, however, when he failed to win a second resolution he suddenly thought that 1441 did contain automaticity.
But one thing is really simple, and every subsequent resolution to 242 bears this point out, the international community does not accept Israel's claim to the land which she took in 1967. No matter how many missing definitive articles you can dredge up.
I will quote again from here:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm
PAY ATTENTION that it is USA that profits from Israel, rather than the opposite. Israel gets nearly 2 billion euros from USA almost every year, that is true. But. US demands that Israel is not allowed to stop BRAIN DRAIN from Eretz israel to USA. Before the Second Intifada, there were 200 Israeli companies listed in the US High Tech Nasdaq, after the Intifaca the count had dropped to 70. At the moment, the number is back in 100, which is still greater than from all the European countries combined. Dollars are green since the yankees pull the down from the tree when still raw and fresh. Israel has not been allowed to let any of its companies to be scaled up in their homeland but most are imported straight from the garage. The scaling up of industrial production would mean jobs, to both Jews, Arabs and other ethnic groups. Israel is ordered to stay as some kind of innovation laboratory only, as the 51. state. Astonishing number of 25% of the Israeli researchers have moved from Israel to the United States - and this figure does not yet even include the people with double citizenship! The next largest brain drain of researchers to US are 12.2% from Canada, 4.3% from Netherlands, and 4.2% from Italy.
One of the secrets of innovative success in Israel is the fact that cheating is minimized in the public funding: Money is not delivered according to research plans but steady income and thus the market analysis is emphasized. The support is designed so that the first 2-10 years a startup company does not have to pay taxes. But no direct funding without compensation is offered. Today, Israel draws Venture Capital (VC) more than the Europe. A novel phenomenon is the strategy by which Israel has been able to claim victory over China and other Far-East countries regarding the most modern High Tech factories: As an example, the supranational Intel transferred the mass production of Centricon-processors to Israel, where 25% of citizens possess a higher decree from the university but where people respect patents and are not plagiating every item they produce for others. (China is a great country of thieves. The Empire of Pirates steals every moving article in your machine.) Intel was also offered an overall tax rate of 10%, which is about three times lower than that of US. Also, the biggest generic drug factory in the world was recently established in Israel. Over half of the export from Israel are High tech products, compared to the 25% which is the average in the OECD countries. Although the export of the agriculture has remained constant past the last 30 years, its relative amount has dropped from 70% to 3%. Out of the 3000 companies in Israel 80% are less than ten years old, and the average failure rate of these start ups is very low, less than 50%. In biotechnology and drug development, about 400 experimental drugs have been approved or accepted in clinical phases. The greatest portion of funding of research per capita is found in Israel. Israel also has the greatest ratio of researchers per square meter or population in the face of the world, far exceeding I.e. Japan which was also raised by plagiation and stealing of other peoples ideas after the WWII: http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Indicator.html
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