The Glade 4.0

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1136829.html




I wonder what, if anything changed his mind (such as he has)? He has spent the last few years practically cheer leading Hamas and Hezbollah(sp). I always get confused, and honestly suspicious of 180's

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Yeah - kinda strange. But I applaud the gesture.

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The Dude abides.

I wonder if this a Democratic damage control move based on the reported gaffes committed by Obama for Hannukah.

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Nah, I think this is just Jimmy Carter being Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is one of those people who thinks everyone is as reasonable as he is. He therefore expects other parties to deal with each other reasonably, especially when he knows that one of those parties is essentially reasonable. When they don't, because reason doesn't work with their opponents, he gets more upset with them than he does the unreasonable party.

He's finally coming to the realizatin that reasonability has really not been an option for Israel in much of its troubles.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Israel wouldn't get so stigmatized if they stopped treating even their allies with a level of paranoia, suspicion, and disdain on a level that makes General Ripper look sane. When was the last time someone was caught in the US spying for Britain, France, or Germany? Israeli spies are caught frequently. I mean, Ariel Sharon once even stated to the press that the Mossad would not hesitate to assassinate US and European citizens on US/European soil if they felt it necessary to prevent terrorism. Why should I afford any respect to someone who has publicly stated that my life has no value to them, the laws and customs of their supposed allies have no value to them, and that they assume every nation that appears "friendly" is in fact a clever facade to disguise the fact that they are plotting to destroy them in secret?

Ok, first of all, I don't know the context of Sharon's remarks (isn't he dead now?), but there are European countries who are fairly hostile to Israel (France for example).

And regarding the spying. Let me preface my comments by saying that I think Israeli spies found spying in the U.S. should be arrested and thrown in prison. But they aren't doing it from any sort of paranoia. They are on the ragged edge, completely surrounded by countries and terrorist groups dedicated to their utter destruction. That creates a certain kind of psyche. I don't think that the Israelis think the U.S. is plotting to destroy them, but they may be very well afraid that the U.S. will withdrawal their support. If we do, than they may feel that they need to know about it as soon as possible, so that they can prepare.

So while I certainly don't condone it, I can certainly understand their reasoning behind it. Doesn't mean that I wouldn't turn one in for spying in the unlikely event I ran across one.

I agree with all of this.

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The Dude abides.

That has a lot more to do with the fact that their allies decided to quit supporting them when it became expedient back in the 1960s.



Part of that is the fact that all of those 3 countries are NATO countries, 2 are full members, and one of them is in the "Big 3" (Britain, Canada, and Australia) that are most frequently able to have access to things we have anyhow. However, if you think there's no spying at all by these countries you're... uninformed.



If your country were that small, surrounded by hostile powers, and other countries had a habit of abandoning it to the threat of invasion and condemning it for taking strong action against threats that those nations don't face in as direct a fashion, you'd probably feel somewhat different about it. Israel isn't doing this because it's any less reasonable than any other western country; it does this because its situation is much more serious.



They're not assuming that. U.S. citizens could be plotting terrorism against Israel with no knowledge whatsoever of the U.S. government.

As for your life having value to them.. it's not supposed to, except insofar as you're a citizen of a friendly country. The job of the government of Israel isn't to avoid taking action against you if you're plotting against them just because you're living in some other country that's friendly to them. That's the job of your government to prevent, and even then they'll catch you and prosecute you.

If you think they're going to go around assassinating people at random you're just paranoid. Israel is a small country with limited assets. It's wasteful and foolish to go around assassinating people on thin evidence. The Mossad and other organizations like it are nothing of not efficient. They aren't going to give 2 shits about you if they don't have a real reason to; you're just not worth it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

But this is exactly what I mean by a lack of trust. If they have strong evidence that a US citizen in the US is plotting terrorism against them, why not just turn them in to the US government? Resorting to assassination just tells the US that you don't trust them to handle such problems.

Also, you don't have to be plotting anything to be a target. Imagine being a certain type of French nuclear engineer in late 70s/early 80s when France was building Iraq a nuclear reactor. Even if you had no connection to the program, there was a good chance they'd decide to kill you simply because you were French and because of what you knew.

Sigh, evidence?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

grawfl

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"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." Charles Mackay

Yea, because being a reactor designer has so much in common with nuclear weapon proliferation. Being as one is design to be a runaway self-sustaining reaction and one is a self-sustaining reaction meant to retard itself in the event of uncontrolled power ascension.

You are basically saying that the CIA should confiscate all hookahs owned by US Citizens made in Middle East as a way to eliminate terror cell activity originating from that region.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Mostly agree. I think Jimmy Carter, whom I admire in many ways, came to the realization that even he cannot bring reason and diplomacy into a war where people refuse to listen. I think he felt that if he looked at the situation from the Palestinian side he could find a solution. His apology signifies that he feels there is no avoiding another war of Arab against Jew and he chooses to not keep trying to mediate a situation without hope.

I also feel that he has been correct in condemning the excesses and overreactions by Israel. Someone has to hold them up to the light.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Isn't his kid running for the Senate in GA?

Go go Jewbots!

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Maybe they don't trust us to handle such problems. There's people in the U.S. who would put political pressure ont he government and perhaps even manipulate the trial to get someone plotting terrorism against Israel off, because of sympathy to the Palestinians/Arabs/whoever.

In any case, they haven't said at any point that they will try to assassinate anyone; only that they wouldn't hesitate to if they had to. That doesn't meant that they wouldn't try to work with us; in fact they probably would. Why use limited resources when you can use another country's justice system to handle the matter? You're leaping to the conclusion that because they are willing to assassinate people that they intend to actually do so. I don't know of any such event; the only similar event anywhere that I can think of was the assassination of Gerald Bull, allegedly by the Mossad, and he was working on SCUDs and Iraq's supergun, and I didn't see anyone outside Israel exactly going out of their way to put a stop to that.



And? Then the French government can take it up with Israel. Don't want Israel to assassinate your engineers? Don't build Saddam a reactor, or else be prepared to take Israel to task for it. This isn't indictive of any particular problem with Israel other than the fact that its neighbors have a bad habit of attacking it, either directly, or, after losing 4 times, through proxies. You seem to forget that in the time period you're talking about Israel had fought 2 wars within the last 10-15 years against external invasion in 1972 and that Saddam Hussein had publicly announced that the reactor was a step in acquiring nuclear weapons.

I'd also like to know what French scientist you're referring to, since the only scientist I could find assassinated in France that was involved in that project was an Egyptian.

Osirak

The facility was completely destroyed by American aircraft during the 1991 Gulf War.




NTI



The fact of the matter is that Israel's main obligation is not to protect the sensibilities of the citizens of other countries, and their refusal to do so is not indictive of a problem with Israel in terms of its international attitude. It's indictive of Israel's short history which is an almost constant story of either overt or covert external attack or the threat thereof, and its limited population and land with which to maneuver.

Israel is certainly not immune from charges of mistakes, ill-considered actions, or occasional atrocities, but the fact that it has appeared as a bully only because of the ineptitude of its enemies.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Israel is not without sin. Saying so is apparently a sin, though.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Israel is not without sin, but no less than it's antagonists. Holding Israel to a higher standard than its antagonists is what Carter and most of the rest of the world have been guilty of for a long time.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Why shouldn't we hold them to a higher standard? They have a more democratic, vibrant government, a significantly more advanced and powerful military, and the ability to choke the Palestinians out via what amounts to a siege (which they very much do). With great power comes great responsibility. If you are choking a people so badly in terms of humanitarian aid, medical aid, food, and basic necessities, then I think you shouldn't be surprised when they start fighting back.

I think that's the key here that is commonly overlooked - that Israel is very much killing the people of Palestine through what amounts to a protracted siege, all under the justification of self defense. Now, someone is going to go off half cocked and say I'm a terrorist sympathizer, but opposing isreal's policies is not the same thing as supporting Hamas' methods.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Monte, I don't have to go off half cocked and say you are a terrorist sympathizer. I just need to point out that in spite of being attacked on all sides and from within for the length of the modern state of Israel's existence, it does not destroy its neighbors. Those 'Palestinians' that choose to live peacefully in the non Palestinian parts of Israel, can have jobs, homes, and a relatively peaceful life. It is the Palestinians that choose to fight on, to keep the conflict going. How do you think the American public would react if the modern day native Americans started firing rockets from the reservations and demanding everyone get out of North America?

For the most part, Israel holds itself to a higher standard than its neighbors. Several of its neighbors have learned that attacking Israel is suicide. Those neighbors have turned into relatively cold and distant, but apparently peaceful neighbors. They recognize Israel could make a statement of terror that they and the other surrounding countries couldn't hope to answer, and that the answer could come quicker than President Obama could pick up the phone and ask them to let American lives be shed in an appropriate peacekeeping mission. The only reason Israel wouldn't counter attack is because that statement would end support from the United States and the rest of the sympathetic world.

Why do you only recognize the siege of Palestine and do not see the siege of Israel. The fact that Israel continues to let the serpent of Palestine make its home in her back yard is because they already hold themselves to a much higher standard.

Israel sins, but Israel has grown weary of turning the other cheek. You hit the Israelis, they respond overwhelmingly to get you to stop - once you stop and they've taken your pathetic bombs and rockets away, they go home.

When Japan bombed one of our military bases on an island territory, we leveled their country in return. No one wants to see that kind of war again.

My only real question is why does Israel keep allowing their citizens to build illegal settlements in 'Palestinian territory' and let it lie until the situation gets bad enough that action needs to be taken. If they could hold that stupidity in check for a decade, maybe some real gains towards peace could be established.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I hate to break this to you but the fact that one side is more powerful than the other or has a different society and form of government is not a reason to hold them to a higher standard. Great power may have great responsibility, but that is simply tautological. It does not come with any arbitrary responsibility we wish to assign them. Their responsibility is to Israeli citizens, not to our sensibilities.

As for people "fighting back", the Palestinians are not simply retaliating for oppression by Israel. Israel pursues such harsh policies because of Palestinian aggression int he form of terror attacks, and wouldn't even posess that land if not for the aggression of Israel's neighbors. All the Palestinians need to do to stop being cut off is stop making rocket and terrorist attacks. Those things aren't even effective means of fighting back; all they do is antagonize Israel further.



It's fine if you oppose Israel's policies, but pretending that they are not doing this out of self defense is simply not accurate. Israel did not go in and conquer these territories out of some desire to sieze land; they took it in order to trade it back to Egypt and Jordan in exchange for peace treaties. The intractability of those nations in that regard following the 1967 war is what left Irasel with these territories it really does not want or need.

Israel has a responsibility to ISraeli citizens. If it feels that more leniant means will be more effective, it will pursue them. It does not. In the meantime, demanding that Israel take a softer approach against terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah when those same organizations refuse to back off is simply having a double standard. Even if we condemn Hezbollah and Hamas, that does not change things because those organizations are little effected and care little about our disapproval; their sponsors are the opinions they care about. Essentially we are just asking Israel to be nicer because we're offended by what is happening.

Moreover, the Palestinian people are the source of the personnel that conduct these attacks. Despite the claim that it's just militants and the majority are innocent, those innocent people feed, clothe, hide, and support the attackers. They are the source of new militants; we often hear the claim repeated that force "just makes more militants". The primary sin the Israelis are guilty of is having more firepower than their antagonists.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."