The Glade 4.0

Our wise and benevolent overlord?

Apparently changing the US isn't enough for the Obamessiah:
"The people of the world want change"

Change you can believe in?

_________________
"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

I'm thinking US-Israeli relations will soon start deteriorating.

_________________
The Dude abides.

I don't see what is so controversial about that. He said they don't recognize the "legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." Well, duh! Israel has every right to defend their own territory and any attempt to attack Israel should be dealt with as harshly and brutally as possible. That said, Israel has no right to expand its territory. All these new Israeli settlements push into Palestinian territory. They can't keep settling there and expect things will ever change. Not that the problematic Palestinian groups are stopping anyway, but these settlements just give them more ammunition for gaining recruitment and support.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That assumes that it's Palestinian territory. Jordan and Egypt lost that territory to Israeli control as a result of the 1967 war, which they caused (Yes, I know Israel attacked first; that was because they knew Egypt would attac them within 2 weeks). Palestinians live there, but it's ultimately under Israeli jurisdiction. They aren't expanding their territory at all.

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

We're not talking about Jordan and Egypt. We're talking about the legally recognized (by most of the world) State of Palestine. Even Israel accepts its existence, even if they do not have diplomatic ties.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

"By most of the world" doesn't mean a whole lot when that "most of the world" is a combination of anti-Israeli states with heavy muslim population, and the states that sponsor those nations (China and Russia). It has only observer status at the U.N., and Gaza and West Bank aren't even controlled by the same government; Hamas effectively controls the Gaza Strip while Fatah controls the West Bank.

In fact, Israel's claim to have unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza (and therefore given up responsibility as the occupying power) is disputed on the basis of Gaza not belonging to any soverign state, among others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

However, this has been disputed because Gaza does not belong to any sovereign state and because of Israel’s effective control of the borders of Gaza, including its long sea border.

Granted, Israel controls access as well, but given the attacks on Israel from Gaza Strip, callign that an "occupation" is a stretching the truth.

The West Bank, on the other hand is under the joint control of Israel and the PA, undert he 1993 Oslo Accords.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank

The percentages are found below with a map. In any case, 83% of the land and 45% of the West Bank population are under Israeli control under that agreement, and 59% of the land and 4% of the population are administered by Israel as well.

It seems that the international community, to the degree it does anything as one group, has tried to have it both ways. When they want Israel to be responsble for the state of these areas, blame them for oppression, or cricticize them for response to armed attack, they claim Israel still controls them. When it's convenient to claim Palestine is a separate state, they claim its a separate state. Even its confused UN status points to this.

Israel has apparently decided that if the rest of the world can't decide one way or the other, it will too and play it both ways.

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

I think you're reaching there.


Only the grey areas here do not have some legal recognition of the State of Palestine. (Only dark green fully recognize it and have diplomatic ties with it.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

What color is for "Not Sure?"

_________________
The Dude abides.

I don't think I'm reaching at all. I don't think "well we let you send some guys here to represent you but we're not exactly recognizing you" counts. That's a good indication that there may be a state of Palestine in the reasonably near future, but there isn't now. Right now the only people calling Palestine a state are those wanting to clobber Israel over the head with accusations of aggression or whatever.

In any case, whether Israel has a right to take palestinian land really doesn't matter. What matters is if they can, including whether the rest of the world will let them, and if so, if they want to. Rights don't matter when it comes to nations except insofar as other nations agree to them. Saddam found that out the hard way. The reason he had no right to invade Kuwait is that it pissed off the rest of the world. The reason Russia, on the other hand, gets to keep East Karelia and the Sakhalin/Kuril islands was that no one really gave a **** except the people who lost the war, and they couldn't do anything about it.

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

That lack of US support for taking more land will likely influence that "want to" part. Which is rather the point. I think Barak Obama is a well intentioned and decent man. I don't agree with everything he's done, but a few things, like this particular comment, are pretty darn cool. I have to recognize them when I see them, since I disagree with his economic and trade policies intensely. (The Kanye West comment was another good obama thing! And i have to go back a fair bit for a third...I liked what he did to GM's creditors when they wouldn't budge on restructuring GM's debt.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Quite true



I really don't mind him putting the squeeze on Israel to stop settling the West Bank/Gaza Strip. I don't, however, appreciate his framing it as an issue of tyranny. Israel got this mess dumped in its lap as a result of the Arab countries planning to attack it in 1967 and then, when they got their asses kicked, refusing to negotiate a peace treaty and get the land back. That's the whole reason Israel has these lands in the first place. They're populated by assholes who shoot rockets and commit other similar acts at Israel because it's not enough for many of them that they get the land they're living on; they think they have some "right of return" to land they, or their forebearers, left voluntarily.

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

Not to mention the fact that Israel offered the Palestinians land back in the day, but the Palestinians refused the offer because they wanted more and thought other Arab nations were going to annihilate Israel altogether.

_________________
The Dude abides.

This is really what it comes down to. The Palestinians are almsot completely muslim, and they think that part of the world should be under muslim governance. Living in a state run by Jews or Chrisitans isn't acceptable; they're supposed to be second-class citizens according to the Koran.

This is why they do things like put a mosque on the Temple Mount and remake churches like the Hagia Sophia as mosques: Then later they can call it a "muslim holy site" and raise hell when they don't control it. The Palestinians ultimately don't just want a Palestinian state; they want a Palestinian state without a Jewish state and in which the Jews are kept in their place as non-muslim "People of the Book".

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

Strange thing. I worked with a Palestinian man at a previous job. He was Greek Orthodox, not Muslim. While they do represent a small minority of the population, apparently there is a sizable Orthodox community of Palestinians. And if I can believe him, the Greek Orthodox community in Palestine hates Israel just as venomously as the Muslims, and it's not for religious reasons at all. Israel treats Christians in Palestine just as badly as it treats Muslims. It was a rather surprising, actually.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Interesting direction this thread has taken considering the small amount actually quoted, and the responses I expected if the quote was taken at face value.

That's very true. At one point, in fact, Lebanon was pretty much an even split between Orthodox, Druze and Muslim, but since the 80s its become more and more muslim.

As for why Israel treats Christians the same as muslims.. well, you generally can't tell them apart just by looking, and if you did treat them differntly, guess what every rocket-launching ******* would claim to be?

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

Hindu?

_________________
The Dude abides.