"On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser."

Hmmmm, Israel has attempted many peace initiatives in the past including things such as land giveaways, prisoner releases, providing food and medicine to the Palestinians, giving them weapons and explosives (to protect themselves from each other), giving them money (lots of money) and many other incentives for an agreement of peace...all that has ever been received in return has been more attacks, more rockets raining down on Israel, more hate rhetoric, more kidnappings, more tunnels, more threats, and more promises of annihilation of Israel...

It is clear Israel would be foolish to accept any Muslim Peace offer...The Palestinians would first have to demonstrate a sincere effort that they would be aggreeable to peace...they could stop firing rockets, stop the violent protests, stop hijacking the food and medicine convoys, stop digging tunnels, stop acid attacks, stop harrassing civilians, stop the suicide attacks, yadadadada....but they won't...

"requiring it to restore the Golan Heights to Syria and allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem."

sure, return the Golan Heights...might as well cut your own throat...the first thing that will be returned to the Golan Heights by the Muslims will be the improved missile batteries capable of raining missiles upon the Israelies....

sure, allow the Palestinians to establish a state capitol in east Jerusalem...then the Muslims will demand the rest of Jerusalem more than they do now..

Giving the Palestinians any concessions only serves to increase the Muslim stranglehold upon Israel and does nothing to create Peace....

This proposed peace plan demands a lot from the Israelis...what does it demand from the Muslims?...absolutely nothing...the proposed peace plan is nothing more than just another veiled death threat that Israel receives all the time....

Posted by: pulsar182 at November 16, 2008 8:15 AM

The Arab/Israeli conflict demonstrates Man's meanness of spirit and lack of imagination. Of course this site is one-sidedly Pro-Israeli so this anti-arab vitriol is hardly surprising.

But the reality is this: Both sides have been mean and nasty to each other. The Arabs could've easily sold pocket-sized Israel some of the vast deserts which they have no use for whatsoever. why does Egypt need Sinai given it has dozens of Sinai's in the Sahara? Why is Syria so willing to kill and die for Golan which they never used for anything more productive than goat grazing?

And meanest of all, why are rich Arabs with land bigger than that of US, so hellbent in keeping Palestinians poor, filthy, angry and penned in Gaza and WB?

But Israel has been mean and nasty too although to far lesser extent. Why cant it leave them Pals alone in Gaza and WB? Why is Israel is determined to continue building settlements in the WB?

Posted by: Gorgi at November 16, 2008 8:39 AM

while visiting Israel a few weeks ago my brother was told by an arab taxi driver that it will take only five years for israel to go under, and with BO's intiatives it might be even less. God helps those who help themselves, and the Israelis will need to go against these appeasers of islamists monsters.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at November 16, 2008 8:44 AM

If Islam did not exist, if the doctrines that are inculcated into the minds of Muslims were not so clear, so consistent, and so deeply imbedded, if instead of being told that they had a duty to remove all obstacles to the spread, and dominance, of Islam, all over the world, if in the minds of Muslims the recapture of territory deemed, because that territory may once have been possessed by Muslims, no matter when, no matter how, no matter for how long or short a time, to have once been part of Dar al-Islam, were not at the top of the list, because land repossessed by non-Muslims that had once become part of Dar al-Islam constitutes an even greater, and permanent affront to Muslims than the fact that parts of the world have as yet never been conquered by Islam, when Believers know (for they are taught) that the whole world belongs to Allah, and to the Believers, the "best of peoples," if there were anything in the historical record to suggest that these deep beliefs were not taken permanently to heart, and explained not merely the uncompromising attitude (which can hide, or disguise, or make palatable to powerful non-Muslims whose aid is sought to pressure other non-Muslims) toward Israel, but a great many other attitudes (the notion that if Kashmir were yielded to Muslim rule, that the pressure on India from Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and within India, including acts of terror, would do more than most temporarily diminish, is also false, if there were some evidence that in the past negotiations and "treaties" the Muslim Arabs had ever shown themselves willing to stick to such treaties and not, as Majid Khadduri notes, always and everywhere regard such treaties with Infidel states or peoples as made to be broken (on the model of Al-Hudaibiyya), if the Israelis in particular had any evidence save for a few words that the difference between the Fast Jihadists of Hamas and the Slow Jihaidsts of Fatah were differences on ultimate goals and not merely on tactics and timing, if the re-establishment of the Jewish commonwealth in modern Israel were not the incredible achievement it is, in a dusty backwater of the Ottoman Empire that had, despite every effort by the local Muslim Arabs to destroy it, managed to be built and to thrive, and to offer an example (an example unrecognized, but an example nonetheless that has had a civilizing effect as an example of an advanced polity in the midst of darkness, not least in its treatment of minorities (compare the treatment of all non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities everywhere in the Arab-dominated land, from Kurds and Berbers and Copts and Assyrians and black African Christians, pagans, and even Muslims), if Israel did not have a perfect right to hold onto what was after 1948 the "West Bank" because of the express terms of the Mandate for Palestine, set up for the establishment of the Jewish National Home, if that territory, seized by the Jordanians, had not then come into the possession of Israel by force of defensive arms in the Six-Day War, so that Israel's claim is reinforced by all the ordinary rules of territorial adjustment after a successful war of self-defense (see how the map of Europe was rewritten after each of the two last world wars, and start with Italy's claim to the Alto Adige, which was once the Sudtirol, and 98% ethnic German went it was awarded to Italy, and quite rightly), if Israel had the vast financial resources of the Muslim Arabs, who have received more than eleven trillion dollars since 1973 alone, because of an accident of geology, if Israel did not need to hold onto the heights of Judea, the traditional invasion route, if the history of the Jews had not been written in Judea and Samaria and the loss of that territory would deal an incalculable blow to Israeli morale, if the local Arabs really were this entirely factititous "Palestinian people" invented out of the local Arabs, for clear propagandistic reasons, only after the Six-Day War (see Zuhair Mohsein, see a thousand others), if Israel did not depend on the aquifers under the "West Bank," if the Arab leaders, and even the leaders of Fatah, did not make completely clear to their own people that what they were smilingly saying to the Americans and the rest of the West could not possibly change their real intentinos, the salami strategy for those who had come to realize an all-out immediate assault was possible, if Mahmoud Abbas himself had not shown, like Arafat, but far more plausibly and cunningly, with a great show of no-one-here-but-us-mild-mannered accountants, if the Arabs had no ability to grasp the very idea that smaller peoples too, the Jews but not only the Jews, had a right to their own states, states that existed not as rump states, essentially dhimmi-states that could be dispensed with if the non-Muslims managed not to show the proper dhimmi attitude (and how long would it take the Arabs to find that anything at all, including the "treatment" of Arabs in a state reduced to retreat behind what even Abba Eban once called "the lines of Auschwitz"), if the Arabs gave any sign that they would now be satisfied, not with 14 million square miles of territory, but with the addition of a territory so tiny to them, but that meant life-and-death to the Israelis, and furthermore were willing to start treating other non-Arab and non-Muslim peopples (those Berbers, those Kurds, those Assyrians, those Maronites, those black Africans in Darfur and the southern Sudan and everywhere that they have been enslaved, still, by Arabs), not only with semi-decency, but as if they too had a right to their own autonomy or states, if there were not every reason for the well-informed to recognize that an insidious game was being played, one that could be played only because so many in power, in a display of "pensee unique," simply have not bothered to find out what it is they need to know in order to think carefully about the fate of Israel and about the entire Middle East, and North Africa, indeed about the fate of the entire world, given that Islam now spreads its tentacles deep into Western Europe, where the understanding of the ideology of Islam has been slow, given that the attempt to push Israel back can only lead to tears, will use up all kinds of energy and capital that should be devoted to learning about, coming to grips, with the problem of Islam, instead of continuing to perform salti-mortali so as to pretend that there is no permanent problem, given the worldview that Islam inculcates, and given the fact -- spelled out by many scholars, but one might begin with Majid Khadduri's "War and Peace in the Law of Islam" -- that no treaty signed by Muslims with Infidels should be permanently obeyed, but regarded as necessarily to be breached, when the occasion presents itself, given all this, and so much more, that one could set out here, it is madness, and cruelty, and wickedness, for those who presume to make policy in this area to continue to ignore the real history of the Middle East, and the history of the Jews, and the history of how all the non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples are treated by the Arabs, and have been, over the past 1350 years, and above all, it is madness for anyone to be kept on in a policy-making position who, whether it is about Israel, or about Iraq or Afghanistan or Paksitan, or about the countries of Western Europe and their own growing domestic distempers, still has not bothered, so long after the 9/11/2001 attack that should have led, but did not lead, to those whose duty it is to instruct and to protect, to hit the books, that is the texts of Islam -- the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira -- and the studies of Islam by the hundreds of great Western scholars who wrote in the age (roughly, 1870-1970) before the Great Inhibition set in, and instead, not knowing where to turn, and being greatly impressed with the smiling diplomats or accommodating and gracious and so-generous Arab hosts -- from Prince Bandar with his well-practiced schtick, to the "plucky little king" Hussein of Jordan, now replaced by the same slightly less-attractive, but still plausible (Deerfield! a beautiful wife! perfect English! what else do you want?) son, and his entourage, and the assorted smoothies who have managed to persaude the Americans that if only, if only, that pesky little Israel were put out of its misery, and brought kicking and screaming to make the deal that --as the James Bakers and Edward Djerijians and even the most exhausted, end-of-our-mental-tether Israelis seem to think might be poossible -- "everyone knows the broad outlines of."

But those "everyones" are wrong. Those "everyones" do not know, do not understand, the texts, tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam. That is what they do not know, and that, I'm afraid, is just about everything that, in an intelligent and well-run polity, they would be required to know.

Posted by: Hugh at November 16, 2008 8:47 AM

This will never work. Islam will never allow the existence of Isreal to continue uncontested. Islamic political ideology will always be antithetical to incompatible with western liberal thought and ways. Islamic political ideology will always seek to undermine and subdue western culture as they have for 1400 years.

The main source of power they have is oil. This is why ENERGY INDEPENDENCE EQUALS HOMELAND SECURITY, AND THE SECURITY OF LIBERTY.

happyclinger.blogspot.com

Do not allow BHObama and the greens to close recently open oil and gas reserves.

read happyclinger.blogspot.com

Posted by: jhna at November 16, 2008 8:50 AM

From article: Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East...

This means that he will talk softly, but not carry a big stick...Instead he will be carrying a big check...

From article: On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser...

This means that Prophet President Obama (PBUH), has no clue as to he is actually dealing with, and Israel is even in more hurt...

Posted by: duh_swami at November 16, 2008 9:08 AM

If Prophet President elect Obama, does not come up with an acceptable birth certificate, to settle the question of his eligibility to be president, he may not be around to press for any MI peace plans.

There are at least six lawsuits...One by Alan Keyes, demanding satisfactory proof that PPEObama
is actually an American, and not an illegal alien.

The question is not of someones opinion, but one of constitutional law. PPEO could produce a valid birth certificate in an hour, if he had one.

Whats his resistance to complying with constitutional law all about???????

Posted by: duh_swami at November 16, 2008 9:22 AM

n a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser. - JW

The same old threats, blackmail, pressure and the rest. It would be 'crazy' to follow any initiative from Obama, because he has absolutely no idea what it takes to live in Israel. Is he biased?

Posted by: MusHuntCowboy at November 16, 2008 10:04 AM

Someone said islam is incompatible with western liberalism. It is ironic perhaps that not much of that `liberalism' is evident og JW indeed most posters here have nothing but contempt for the very concept. But never mind.

Lets look at some historical facts shall we? There was a time when Islam was by far the most tolerant and most liberal of all faiths. In Abbasid Baghdad, drinking fine wines and encouraging the arts and debate was taken to new heights. There was even a whole genre of Arabic literature called Khamriyat dedicated to praising of wine-drinking and having a good time.

It was the Ottomman empire that welcomed those escaping the Inquisitions of fanatical Catholic Europe. Some of the Moguls who ruled India behaved with remarkable tolerance for their time.

More topically it is important to note that not one single Muslim carried out a homicidal suicide attack before 1982. Which begs the question: What changed so radically from the 80s onwards?

The answer is inescapable: Saudi money earned after Yom Kippur war when price of oil quadrupled overnight became available for spreading Wahabbism. Every single crazed group from Hamas to Taleban; Jamaat in Indonesia to Courts in Somalia; from FIS &GIS in Algeria to AQ in Peshawar; every head-chopping; child-killing women whipping little nasty group bar Hezbollah has roots leading directly to Saudi Arabia in an almost direct lineal pathway.

Which begs the question: Why is America attacking everybody else except Saudi? Heck there isnt even a dainty little political pressure on the Monstrosity? Why?

Posted by: Gorgi at November 16, 2008 10:15 AM

Lets look at some historical facts shall we? There was a time when Islam was by far the most tolerant and most liberal of all faiths. In Abbasid Baghdad, drinking fine wines and encouraging the arts and debate was taken to new heights. There was even a whole genre of Arabic literature called Khamriyat dedicated to praising of wine-drinking and having a good time. - Georgi

Lets not mix-up facts with concoctions that you posted and deducing from that some comical conclusions. The history of Islam, read from the receipients view point is not liberal in any form or a manner. Islam completely forbids alcohol, so your remarks about wine tasting in the Islamic world are totally absurd. What new heights did they take the art to, care to tell us? Perhaps you should read the history of the Art in Europe, backed up with abundance of evidence, instead of stating which is never been backed up with evidence. Granted, they built some intersteing Mosques - that was all. Having good time is not part that you can point us to anywhere in Quaran, the constitution of Arabs. Talking to an Indian Colleague, he told me Muslims killed / butchered over 60 million Indians during when Muslims were ruling India. If they were so tolerant about the others, why don't we ever read about that in any receipients history book?

Sell your BS to someone else and on a other place.

Posted by: MusHuntCowboy at November 16, 2008 10:38 AM

From post above: much of that `liberalism' is evident og JW indeed most posters here have nothing but contempt for the very concept.

You got me there...I am issue oriented. There are several issues that liberals support that I don't and won't.

The fanaticism that many show in support of 'liberal' causes is why some people have claimed
that liberalism is a mental illness.

Many police dept's issued riot gear in case there were riots post election. There were no riots because Obama won.

If Obama gets booted for failing to meet the eligibility requirements of the Constitution, we will see who riots then...

Posted by: duh_swami at November 16, 2008 10:43 AM

"Islam completely forbids alcohol, so your remarks about wine tasting in the Islamic world are totally absurd"

Absurd but true. Both the Ummayadas of Syria and Abbasids of Baghdad were fond of drinking and both Damascus and Baghdad had pubs ine very corner during those days(Damascus still does and Baghdad did till the invasion!)

What arts? Silver, glass and Jewellery-making, miniature painting, embroidery and calligraphy; Architecture(not only Mosques)all thrived in certain periods of Islamic history.

It is true some of the Muslim ruler were evil brutes but so were all invaders in those days.

"Sell your BS to someone else and on a other place."

Good to see a demonstration of our love and
appreciation for free speech and tolerance to those bigotted, narrow-minded Muslims..

Posted by: Gorgi at November 16, 2008 10:54 AM

Duh Swami

We dont know what would've happendd if Obama had lost. There were no riots when Gore lost. So I fail to see what liberalism has got to do with police planning for possible events surely that is purely pragmatic?

Anyway I think it is fascinating that those of you on the Right, and some here make Genghiz Khan look like flower power liberal - attack Islam for being illiberal and intolerant yet have no time for either of those things themslves.

Posted by: Gorgi at November 16, 2008 11:04 AM

It is true some of the Muslim ruler were evil brutes but so were all invaders in those days. - Gorgi,

'Some' is really an understatement. More accurately should be written as vast majority. Read any history book, from the receipient's view point (Asia/Europe/Africa/ (recently the US)), Moslums were destructive, rapers and brutel. They either stole or burnt art from different cultures. They had nothing but contempt for non-Muslims. That hasn't changed over thousand years.

Where did you read that Muslims drank wine etc? That is a good story that you hear from many Mosloms. What is stopping them now to mix with the Western culture if these people are not so bent on destroying the culture they live in?

Saudie money is not the cause of their behavor, but Quaran. Everything evil they do and done goes back to the source, Quaran.

Sorry that I wrote 'BS'.

Posted by: MusHuntCowboy at November 16, 2008 11:13 AM

Gorgi: You have missed the larger picture. Big time. Even supposing your statements about Muslims drinking wine, manifesting real tolerance, etc. are true, this would have always been done in spite of Islam, not because of it. Islam forbids alcohol and, at best, extends a begrudging, condescending second-class tolerance to some non-believers. By contrast, any murderous, intolerant Christians were violating the tenets of their faith when acting such. Christianity is so pacifist in theory that major Christian thinkers over the centuries have had to jump through metaphorical hoops to justify certain kinds of war. And, thankfully, Christian theory has never inveighed against alcohol. Step back and see the whole forest instead of just a few trees here and there.

Posted by: Wellington at November 16, 2008 11:59 AM

We dont know what would've happendd if Obama had lost. There were no riots when Gore lost. So I fail to see what liberalism has got to do with police planning for possible events surely that is purely pragmatic?

Gore is was not the Messiah, The Prophet, the one...it was liberals who built this Obama image, and it is liberals who will fight to keep it...

I know of no other American election where police organizations prepared for possible riots...

Do you think the police were preparing for conservative street disturbances?

Just who does engage in street disturbances in America? Which group, conservative or liberal are most likely to take to the streets with their frustrations?

I haven't counted, but I could make a good guess...

Posted by: duh_swami at November 16, 2008 12:03 PM

I suspect, if Muslims did more Boozing and Whoring, there would not be such a problem with them. Alas, they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at November 16, 2008 12:13 PM

Gorgi-- explain how Wahabi Islam is some kind of new teaching, how it is not consistent with Hanbali fiqh, how it is not merely one in a long history of puritanical Salafi movements in Islamic history and why if it so un-Islamic it so easily bought it's way everywhere into the hearts and minds of Muslims?
Was the Muslim Brotherhood a Wahabi movement? Was Khomeini a Wahabi? Why does every Islamic terrorist rely on the authority of Qur'anic ayats like Surah Nine and the understanding of such teachings by classical authorities, enshrined in every mainstream school of Islamic law, and not on the authority of al-Wahhab? Salafism is returning Muslims to the first three generations of Islam, whom Muhammad called the best Muslims. Did he not clearly say that? The Saudis are Princes of Darkness, surely,
but they hardly invented the dark.

Posted by: Nick Danger at November 16, 2008 12:28 PM

For President Obama to pretend that there could be a lasting negotiated peace between Israel and the Muslim world is to be expected, but for him to actually believe this and hammer Israel about it is just stupid folly. Most of the Muslim world by far and the “Palistinians” in particular cannot and will not accept the permanent existence of Israel as a matter of their faith.
Once a territory has been part of dar al-Islam it MUST revert to Islam - Israel has no right to exist in the Islamic world view and the land with its famous mosque must be reconquered (esp. after Israel’s humiliating defeat of the Muslims in the ’67 war).

The problem isn’t with extremist in Hamas or any other group, it’s with Islam itself!

I would think Obama knows this even if he has to be quite about it.

Posted by: FM at November 16, 2008 12:35 PM

FM: You stated things succinctly and precisely. I also would think that Obama knows he has to do the dog and pony show for form's sake (although it would be refreshing if someday a President says he won't play games anymore and that the real problem in the Middle East is the deep intolerance of non-believers rooted in Islamic thought), but I do have a concern that Obama actually believes the stuff he's putting forth. If so, then we're in even bigger trouble, as is Israel.

Posted by: Wellington at November 16, 2008 12:50 PM

"Omar Ahmad, in response to another speaker's question, says, "We've always demanded the 1948 territories."

"Yes," the unnamed speaker replies. "But we don't say that publicly. You cannot say that publicly, in front of the Americans."

"No," Ahmad agrees, "We didn't say that to the Americans."

The Oslo Accords complicated the debate, HLF's Shukri Abu Baker explains. Before, resistance could be cast as a legitimate response to occupation. But Oslo creates a Palestinian government, Baker says, cutting into that argument and making any violence look like an obstacle to peace:

"I swear by your God that war is deception," Baker tells Ahmad. "War is deception. We are fighting our enemy with a kind heart and we never thought of deceiving it. War is deception. Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you're leaving while you're walking that way…Deceive your enemy."

--FBI recordings, Philadelphia meetings 1993,
of defendants in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the funding arm for Hamas, on how the Oslo peace accords could be derailed. IAP Chairman Omar Ahmad went on to found CAIR. source: IPT

Posted by: Nick Danger at November 16, 2008 12:52 PM

"It was the Ottomman empire that welcomed those escaping the Inquisitions of fanatical Catholic Europe."

You mean the same Ottoman empire that oppressed, exploited its infidel natives for centuries? Used them as slaves, took their young boys and turned them into fanatical Muslim soldiers so as to kill other infidels.

The same savage Turkish empire that waged a brutal war of conquest against the west for 500 years?

You're a funny guy Gorgi.

Posted by: waltc at November 16, 2008 12:52 PM

"This means that he will talk softly, but not carry a big stick...Instead he will be carrying a big check..."

LOL...

Swami--don't ever stop being you!

Posted by: Abscedere at November 16, 2008 1:06 PM

"Is he biased?"

Uh, yeah. First of all, he studied nothing ut Islam for four years in an Indonesian madrassa designed to radicalize children in to dying in jihad. He knows Islam, he knows jihad, and he knows Arabs. That's why anyone who believes anything he says is necessarily brain-damaged or too ingorant to breathe, since he claimed that poverty leads to terrorism, i.e., let's give more money to terrorists so they can destroy us. Like Osmama bin Laden's so poor. Second, he hates Israel, as can be seen in every campaign advisor and every cabinet pick thus far, as they have all devoted their lives to destroying Israel and pandering to Arabs, if not to inventing, cf. Khalidi, the "Palestinian" identity. He called Israel's wall a "barrier to peace." I suppose, in his mind, Jordan's and Egypt's identical walls are "justified," since they are entitled to keep their nations from being overrun by HAMAS terrorists, while Israel is entitled to allow them to complete Hitler's final solution.

Posted by: jdamn at November 16, 2008 1:20 PM

Gorgi wrote:

"There was a time when Islam was by far the most tolerant and most liberal of all faiths. In Abbasid Baghdad, drinking fine wines and encouraging the arts and debate was taken to new heights. There was even a whole genre of Arabic literature called Khamriyat dedicated to praising of wine-drinking and having a good time."

Well, I beg to differ:

Later in life Abu Nuwas [poet of the Khamriyat wine poems] regretted his drinking bouts and asked God for forgiveness saying:

"O God! The magnitude of my sins are enormous,
But I know Your mercy is so much greater.
If only the virtuous can call on You for help,
Then with who can a criminal seek friendship and shelter?
O God! I beseech You as You ordered, in prayer,
If You turn me down, who will show compassion?
I have no entreaties for You except my imploring,
The beauty of Your forgiveness and I am a Muslim."

Then how about this Muslim poet from the same period:

"Truer than words of books is the sword in its tidings,
...
The white gleam of swords, not the black ink of books,
Clears doubts and uncertainties and bleak outlooks.
From the lances flashing between armies knowledge comes,
Not from the seven heavenly bodies and their wisdom."

Posted by: DenverRodeo at November 16, 2008 1:28 PM

"We dont know what would've happendd if Obama had lost. There were no riots when Gore lost."

That's because rich fat white Southern liberals don't riot when they feel offended.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at November 16, 2008 1:32 PM

The 1948 Armistice (Green) Line was determined by the circumstances of a ceasefire, is untenable and indefensible, not to mention absurd; the Muslim world wishes to erase the humiliation of '67, as a renewed point of departure for erasing the humiliation of '48, that is, the State of Israel. Yield to Syria a beachhead on the Upper Jordan? Surrender the Wailing Wall and the Jewish Quarter? The Tombs of the Patriarchs? Renew the desecration of ancient, hallowed Jewish cemeteries and synagogues? Return Jewish Jerusalem to its former vulnerability? (B. H. Obama lied about supporting an undivided Jerusalem as Israel's capital.)

Returning to a point comparable to June 4, 1967 is the key to peace? Just what is it that Barack Hussein and his Chicago apparatchiks are smoking??

Posted by: John C at November 16, 2008 1:45 PM

John C-
You are being unfair to Obama saying he lied about a united Jerusalem. He only lied for one day - he reneged within 24 hours.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at November 16, 2008 2:45 PM

I give the man too much credit. I assume he's consistent enough to know where he really stands, apart from momentary calculations and prevarications. So, what you're saying is, he's NOT lying, he's merely FICKLE.

Posted by: John C at November 16, 2008 3:02 PM

Interesting he is so quick off the mark in dealing with the "Territories" and that his closet-cabinet member, Malley is roaming the Middle East.
One must remember that the issues of the territories was not a matter prior to the "Six Days of Sixty-Seven".
Palestinians are as much a security burden to Jordan and, now with veto-power held by Hezbollah (sic) over any Lebanese government, as they are to Israel.
After Palestinians abandoned the "Territories" and found refugee status wherever they could, it was not in the countries that precipated the War; Egypt, Syria, Iraq, or the doting emirates or the Kingdom of Suadi Arabia. It was in Lebanon and Jordan mostly.
But, as with the domestic terrorists in the US, Obama was only how old at the time?

Posted by: Shawmut at November 16, 2008 3:04 PM

I didn't mean to cause so much confusion with the liberal word. By liberal I mearly meant the concept of western culture as open to new ideas and freedom of thought or action. Similar to the meaning in the term "liberal arts education". I did not intend to say that islam as a political ideology will not tolerate liberal political ideas, although this is certainly the case as well, only more so.

As for tolerance, I suppose offering jizya dhimitude as an alternative to a smiting of the neck was progressive for the year 800. However in the year 2008 it is so retro.

Gorgi:
I am sure wahabism and the Saudis are a large part of the problem, however they are not soley responsible for the fact that every single muslim majority nation in the world , bar none, either supresses harrases, kills or is otherwise completely intolerant of religious minorities. Furthermore any state with a large ie 10 percent or more muslim minority suffers more religious strife, (initiated by "restive" muslims ).

Gorgi, I'm afraid those are the boots on the ground facts in the 21st century.

Posted by: jhna at November 16, 2008 5:10 PM

Point taken, poetcomic. Now, will someone who's not some Obamaniac like Chris Matthews please answer the question, "Just what is it that Barack Hussein & crew are smokin'?"

Posted by: John C at November 16, 2008 5:41 PM

Wellington,
You have to be encourage by the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as chief-of –staff. This is, I think, partly a signal to Israel. When President Obama doesn’t withdraw support for Israel after Israel refuses to make suicidal concessions, the Muslims can blame powerful Jewish influence again.

Posted by: FM at November 16, 2008 5:45 PM

Why stop at 1967? Let's go back to 1920.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BritishMandatePalestine1920.png

Posted by: interestinconundrum at November 16, 2008 5:45 PM

Time for "what really happened" again.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

Posted by: interestinconundrum at November 16, 2008 5:51 PM

John C.

Obama isn't smokin' anything. He knows what he wants. He wants to be YOOR-OH-PEE-UHN. To be a real bonafide European your VERY FIRST ACT is to take the Palestinians up yer ole whazoo! Am I the only one who wonders how Walt Kelly's Pogo swamp critters would digest today's world? And to think that he was considered a 'liberal' in his day.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at November 16, 2008 5:52 PM

B.O. isn't even president yet!

He's at it already.

Is Israel America's top priority issue? Is that why B.O. is getting a running start on this before he is even in office?

Hmmm....

Now whose priority is getting Golan into Syrian hands I wonder ?

Who considers it a pressing matter to limit Israel to pre-war (1967) borders ?

Hmm........

And to think, he's not even officially on the job yet.

Posted by: joeblough at November 16, 2008 6:25 PM

Comment about anyone's plan to '67 borders; the "6 Day War" was no fluke. God returned all of Jerulsalem back to Israel and what God gives you you don't give away without consequinces. God's plan has been right on track all along. Israel is not going away. Governments can decide boundries and sign treaties all they want. But the one who wags his finger in the face of God is really stupid.

Posted by: LG at November 16, 2008 6:31 PM

Comment about anyone's plan to '67 borders; the "6 Day War" was no fluke. God returned all of Jerulsalem back to Israel and what God gives you you don't give away without consequinces. God's plan has been right on track all along. Israel is not going away. Governments can decide boundries and sign treaties all they want. But the one who wags his finger in the face of God is really stupid.

Posted by: LG at November 16, 2008 6:32 PM

Hugh: The first sentence of your comment no doubt contained more good points than most paragraphs. I mean that. Unfortunately, those points tend to get lost (along with your readers) when contained in a sentence that runs on for 1,485 words (I ran a word count) before reaching the period. Please try to achieve a briefer writing style!

Obama: Why did you wait until after your election to explain that your peace plan for Israel involved its withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries? What other surprises await us? Have you been forthright with the electorate in regard to how you intend to use your newly-won powers, or has your political campaign been an elaborate deception sold to a naive electorate hoping your election would painlessly bring about peace, free medical care, the healing of racial, class and religious divisions, world harmony, and the Age of Aquarius?

King Abdullah: Perhaps you have a point about how forcible conquest should not make new boundaries acceptable, even with passage of time. As a part of your peace plan, how about if you also agree that the Muslims should withdraw to their boundaries as they existed in 622 A.D. (when Muhammed and his followers occupied an orphan's field in Medina and nothing more)?

Posted by: Karl2 at November 16, 2008 6:33 PM

As a part of your peace plan, how about if you also agree that the Muslims should withdraw to their boundaries as they existed in 622 A.D. (when Muhammed and his followers occupied an orphan's field in Medina and nothing more)?

And we have a winner.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at November 16, 2008 6:40 PM

FM: I see your point about Emanuel but anymore just because one's Jewish doesn't mean they're level headed on the issue of Israeli security and survival. Also, Emanuel is a good party man but much of the Democratic Party is no longer as keen on Israel as virtually all of it once was. Look at the Congressional Black Caucus as an example, where you will find numerous outright sympathizers for the Palestinian cause, even though that cause is about as little supportable by sensible people as a cause can be. Now, if Obama had appointed Joe Lieberman, then your assessment would indeed be reassuring, though I concede you may still very well be correct regarding Obama's choice of Emanuel.

Posted by: Wellington at November 16, 2008 6:59 PM

Karl--

I agree that a dashed-off reaction is not the same thing as a sustained, nicely paragraphed comment. I simply felt like making my points as quickly as possible, and after the first phrase decided I would deliberately turn the whole thing into one long run-on breathless sentence to mimic my uninterruptable fury, mimicking how someone might orally respond, reeling off without stopping a list of the many reasons why this Return-to-the-1949-Armistice-Lines plan would make sense, if only this, and if only that, and if only a hundred other things, were not, as they are, unfortunately, true.

So it was 1485 words? Okay, the next time the spirit so moves me, I'll try for 1,486.

Posted by: Hugh at November 16, 2008 8:08 PM

Gorgi: You seem to forget about how your "peaceful" Muslims disrupted the 1972 Munich Olympics. While not a suicide attack, maybe it was after Mossad became involved, shouldn't there have been some area where even jihad would take a vacation and allow the world to compete in piece?

I will offer you what follows to demonstrate just how humanitarian your Ottomans were:

Something you should certainly have some knowledge of is what happened to the Armenians under the "peace loving" Islamic Turks in 1915-1918 when 1,500,000 Armenians were killed. This happened after the Turks took away the Armenians guns. Because what follows certainly pertains to what is happening to day, I will copy-paste what follows:

"There were also big cultural differences between Armenians and Turks. The Armenians had always been one of the best educated communities within the old Turkish Empire. Armenians were the professionals in society, the businessmen, lawyers, doctors and skilled craftsmen. And they were more open to new scientific, political and social ideas from the West (Europe and America). Children of wealthy Armenians went to Paris, Geneva or even to America to complete their education.
By contrast, the majority of Turks were illiterate peasant farmers and small shop keepers. Leaders of the Ottoman Empire had traditionally placed little value on education and not a single institute of higher learning could be found within their old empire. The various autocratic and despotic rulers throughout the empire's history had valued loyalty and blind obedience above all. Their uneducated subjects had never heard of democracy or liberalism and thus had no inclination toward political reform. But this was not the case with the better educated Armenians who sought political and social reforms that would improve life for them and Turkey's other minorities." Does this seem like the world today?
Pasted from

Wahabbism came about after the reformation of Islam and was a step back to the tenets of the founders of this cult; therefore, it is what Islam in all about as demonstrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is not the world that I want to live in, if you do then I suggest you go there and enjoy yourself.

Posted by: jdoug at November 16, 2008 8:53 PM

Many posts here refuting your contentions, Gorgi. Have you nothing to say?

Posted by: Wellington at November 16, 2008 8:58 PM

Hugh - I understand perfectly.

Reading something like that is like tossing off a glass of firewhiskey* in one nonstop draught.

*one of the things that wizards drink in the Harry Potter books

I, too, am simply seething at this latest development, with a mixture of fury and horror made even worse by Foreign Minister Smith's craven decision to toe the Islamintern line. Thank you for giving the rest of us less articulate folks words - words of fire.

(In my case, my poor spouse just about has to grab the fire extinguisher as I leap from the computer desk with smoke pouring from my ears at the latest news from the UN ).

By the way: you may like to know that your lapidary paragraph from two years ago, explaining briefly why there is no 1-state, 2-state or n-state 'solution' to the Jihad against Israel, has been posted by me on many an occasion in comments to suitable articles, or on assorted blogs, at Jerusalem Post.

Moreover, I have just included it in a letter of support and encouragement which I have written to MP Michael Danby, one of Australia's two current Jewish MPs serving in federal parliament.

Mr Danby was so distressed and dismayed by what Smith got our Australian UN ambassador to do (i.e. cravenly vote Yes to two bog-standard Islamintern anti-Israel resolutions) that he spoke out publicly against it; thus breaking ranks with his own party. I felt that Mr Danby could do with all the support he can get - and your paragraph was the best thing I could think of to give him. I threw in the address of this website for good measure, describing it as 'intelligently pro-Israel' - I hope he succumbs to curiosity, and pays us all a visit.

Am Yisrael chai!

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 16, 2008 9:13 PM

Gorgi also forgot about the assassination of RFK, which, while not a suicide attack (like we care if they blow themselves up; it's about our safety), was still an act of terrorism by an Islamic terrorist over an invented Islamic grievance.

I found Hugh's long (not 'long-ass!') sentence quite endearing. That's normal to Italians. We think in subordinate clauses and write in them too, probably because if we finish a sentence someone in our family will try to steal the floor. That's my theory about that anyway. D'Annunzio wrote 8-page sentences. Hugh also makes me feel less long-winded, which is also endearing. It was pithy, if long.

Posted by: jdamn at November 16, 2008 9:15 PM

Hugh: I read your post and agree with most of it. Why should Israel have to give back anything to the Muslims when they have been under constant siege by them since the establishment of their country. They have been subjected to sneak attacks by superior numbers for years and now the politically correct liberals think that they should have to return such a strategically important area as the Golan Heights to them, ridiculous.

It is the politically correct liberal educators that seem to be the majority in our institutions of higher learning in the liberal arts departments that perpetuate these kinds of ideas in no thinking, impressionable students that seem to hang on their every word. The problem will not end until these types are shaken out of their Ivory Towers. Between their admiration of Islam and their worshiping at the alter of environmentalism, we don't have much of a chance.

Posted by: jdoug at November 16, 2008 9:18 PM

Clarification to the above -

it was Mr Fitzgerald's initial posting that I was comparing to a draught of Firewhiskey.

Karl2 - the thing to do with Mr Fitzgerald's 8.47 am posting, is to copy it onto your own computer, then read through it, parsing it grammatically into its component clauses and sentences, and inserting a space between each.

That's what I did; and when you do that, Hugh's piece falls into the cadences of poetry and of the great political speeches of the western world; it demands to be declaimed aloud.

Here's how the opening portion looks, that magnificent sequence of 'ifs', when you open it out a little:

"If Islam did not exist,

"if the doctrines that are inculcated into the minds of Muslims were not so clear, so consistent, and so deeply imbedded,

"if instead of being told that they had a duty to remove all obstacles to the spread, and dominance, of Islam, all over the world,

"if in the minds of Muslims the recapture of territory deemed, because that territory may once have been possessed by Muslims, no matter when, no matter how, no matter for how long or short a time, to have once been part of Dar al-Islam, were not at the top of the list,

"because land repossessed by non-Muslims that had once become part of Dar al-Islam constitutes an even greater, and permanent affront to Muslims than the fact that parts of the world have as yet never been conquered by Islam,

"when Believers know (for they are taught) that the whole world belongs to Allah, and to the Believers, the "best of peoples"... END EXCERPT.

Now, Karl: read that over a few times, slowly; then have a go at saying it out loud, not *too* fast, but in tones of steadily mounting but always controlled high moral indignation...it will knock your socks off.

Is anyone here, with current access (as student or faculty member) to a university campus, in Australia, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, the United States...brave enough to copy and print off Hugh's speech here given, spend some time learning and digesting it, and then...get a group together, and stand in the middle of the quad while someone reads it aloud?

Is there anyone game to record it and post the results on youtube?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 16, 2008 9:31 PM

Yes, that's the 1949 armistice lines.

Delineating a fictitious peace yesterday, and providing the basis for a fraudulent peace today and tomorrow.

Posted by: John C at November 16, 2008 9:57 PM

"Unfortunately, those points tend to get lost (along with your readers) when contained in a sentence that runs on for 1,485 words (I ran a word count) before reaching the period. Please try to achieve a briefer writing style!"

I found Hugh's long sentence spellbinding; I couldn't stop reading it till the end, even though it was onerous at times! Please don't change it Hugh.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at November 16, 2008 11:37 PM

From jdamn at November 16, 2008 1:20 PM

"...he (Obama) hates Israel, as can be seen in every campaign advisor and every cabinet pick thus far, as they have all devoted their lives to destroying Israel..."

Wow! What have you been smokin'?

Obama appointed Representative Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, a genuine hard-line Zionist Jew believing in the ultimate victory of Israel over all of Dar-al Islam. Spokesmen for both Hamas and Hezbollâh expressed disappointment at this and said that Emanuel's appointment would not help the "cause of peace" in Palestine, but both also adopted and "wait and see" attitude. Emanuel has made statements to friends that "Hamas is toast." Emanuel has also said about Obama that "He doesn't need me to influence his policy on Israel."

Emanuel has also said about Obama's policies that "The interests of the US come first, everything else is secondary." Because of the large number of Jews in the US, I would presume this to mean that the interests of Israel are pretty much the same as the US. I doubt that someone with beliefs as strong as Emanuel's, would work under a boss who was opposed to those beliefs.

I suggest all of us adopt the same "wait and see" attitude as Hamas and Hezbollâh. In all of Obama's statements, it has been difficult to tie him down on any questions about Israel; he may surprise us all.

Posted by: Jockaira at November 17, 2008 12:14 AM

he may surprise us all.

Posted by: Jockaira

That's what I am afraid of...

Posted by: duh_swami at November 17, 2008 12:39 AM

Rahm Emanuel was the guy who told Clinton to sign a treaty with Arafat. Rahm Emanuel is the Democrat equivalent of James Baker's "Jew boys." Rahm Emanuel is an ingenius pick because, on the one hand, we can all wipe our brows and say 'whew, he picked a Jew; Israel's safe. It must be. Muslims are angry about it.' On the other hand, Obama can continue to sell Israel down the river at every opportunity just as Joe Biden has done over the past 30 or however many years, just as he has the Serbs.

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-other-sleazebag-friends.html

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2008/01/obamas-scary-anti-israel-advisors.html

If you're satisfied with that pick, or with Joe Biden, or with Hagel and Malley, then I feel compelled to ask what it is that you're smokin,' Jockaira. I'm smoking American Spirit menthol lights and they're hurting my lungs but not affecting my mental faculties.

Posted by: jdamn at November 17, 2008 1:38 AM

Hugh @ 8:47 AM

We truly love and admire you Hugh, we all know about your propensity for just letting words fly, and, yes, I can spot nuggets of brilliance scattered here and there, but you positively outdid yourself on this one. A paragraph of 1,485 words without a single sentence or paragraph break is just too much to parse. Call me dense, but my poor brain just can't handle this. I could go back and edit it into bite sized chunks if I were so inclined, which I'm not, but why should I have to? If this were written by one of my students I'd send it back for a rework.

A rule of thumb I use is, if a sentence is too complex to be readily diagrammed it's too long (I usually also have to explain about sentence diagramming because it doesn't seem to be taught any more). I challenge you or anyone else here to diagram this monstrosity!

Posted by: Eastview at November 17, 2008 4:24 AM

Jhna

I did a bit of reaserach on this matter over number of years. I speak Arabic fluently and I lived and worked in a number of Arab and Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. I visited about ten other Arab countries. I have dozens of secular Muslim friends including lecturers, journalists and others. And I can say without any doubt that all Islamist madness goes back to Saudi Arabia except Hezbollah and Iran.

Ask those in the region who are desperately trying to stem the tide of blood and hate sweeping through their countries and they will give specific dates when Wahabbist hate descended on them: the first Imam from Medina University; the first radio station; the first islamist pamphlet; the first bank account for the first group.

The CIA knows this. Mossad knows this. American and Israeli academia and all interested think-tanks know about this. Yet not a word against Saudi. Why? Because the US and Saudi money and establishments including academia and other elites are enmeshed are so entertwined they dare not speak out.

So you, the American public are focused on non-existant enemies instead. What did Iraq ever do to harm America or American interests? None.

Just think about it and do a bit more independent research yourself. you will find Saddam Hussein could've been an absolutely inavaluable ally against this existential fight against Islamism. Yet oilmen like Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush - all with direct Saudi links took him out handing Iraq over to Shia Islamists. Makes no sense unless you realise the depth of the links between Washigton, London, Paris and Riyadh.

Posted by: Gorgi at November 17, 2008 6:17 AM

Just noticed a lot of responses all negative which is rather sad.

Perhaps the most unjustfiable of all responses are those blaming Islam or Muslims for every act of violence perpeterated by an Arab, Turk, Sengalese or Moroccan. The Ottoman massacre of the Armenians has nothing to do with Islamism it was Nationalist fascist chauvinism. Blaming it on Islam is like blaming Catholicism for the holocaust. Do people not see how ludicrous that will be?

The murderers of Munich were Marxists/Fascist nationalists probably led by a `Christian' Arab boss called George Habash(yes I know about Black september etc but some still think it was PFLP) Bishara Sirhan Bishara was not an Islamist but a Palestinian nationalist too(wasnt he Christian too? not sure).

Intriguingly when the redoubtable Golda Meir held emergency meeting with her security chiefs during the Munich crisis she asked head of Mossad(or Shin Beth?) "what are the chances of the terrorists blowing themslves and their hostages up"? The security chief responded "Prime Minister, Arabs do not kill themselves only the Japanese do that".

Fascinating isnt it that within ten years Arabs became synonomous with suicide bombing.

When we are discussing of `muslim' or Islamist violence we are talking about the kind of violence inspired by Islam - killing and dying for God. We all know what violence is: AQ, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fis, Gis, Jamaat, Jemaah, ICU etc.

Posted by: Gorgi at November 17, 2008 6:39 AM

Wellington

You make a good point. Islam has violence within its core ideology in a way the Judeao-chritian heritage doesnt(mind you the Bible is heaving with fights, clan hatreds and at times a petty, vengeful god who punishes whole communities because they disobey him or something)

Nonetheless there is no equivalent in the Quran of Thou Shall Not Kill and certainly no Love Thy enemies or turning cheeks.

But the historical(and therefore human) facts remain: there were times when Christians murdered for God big time(remember Warrior Monks?) while Muslims smoked their Hashish, drank their wines and ignored Allah's call to arms.

Posted by: Gorgi at November 17, 2008 6:51 AM

The Christians were never crazy genocidal. Read PIG to Islam and the Crusades. The Crusades were defensive wars. And the Spanish INquisition killed fewer poeple over the course of 80 years than were kiled in one hour on 9/11.

Posted by: jdamn at November 17, 2008 8:07 AM

Gorgi, you may partially have a point about Saudi influences in the West over the past thirty years or so. And you are correct about oilmen Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld (don't forget to add James Baker), which is why it is imperative to cut the oil ties to the ME. But how would you account for the increasing madness in Pakistan, Indonesia, Somalia, and the rest of Islamdom? Would this, too, be solely due to the Saudis? Also, where are the voices of your many Muslim friends loudly denouncing the violence being promulgated in the name of your "Religion of Peace?" If you were so concerned about the bad rap Islam is getting you'd take matters into your own hands to clean house of the crazies instead of criticizing those who are commenting on it. When you have done that, get back to us. In the meantime we'll do what needs to be done to protect ourselves.

Posted by: Eastview at November 17, 2008 12:02 PM

"all Islamist madness goes back to Saudi Arabia except Hezbollah and Iran."
--an exception, Gorgi? You mean there's something out there besides "Wahabbist hate"
driving violence in the name of Islam? How could that be? Could they have something in common?

Might it have something to do with the Qur'an and Sunnah and the mandates to wage Jihad and the actual behavior of Muhammad and his Companions and successors? Could suicide-homicide killing have something to do with all the martyrdom ayats, with the compact Allah makes with Muslims in 9:111, for instance, along with the ease with which modern technology makes a human bomb practical? Did the Saudis invent these verses?

Did you read the instructions given the 9/11 suicide-homicide killers on what to read the night before? Surahs 8 & 9 of the Qur'an.
Why do you think they would contemplate those? Nor is there any mention of politics or nationalism or even the United States, just that they are to envision themselves as if they were back in the time of the Companions. And to instill terror in their victims and shout "Allahu akbar" before "slaughtering their animal." Did the Saudis invent these traditions?

Does someone give up their life because the Saudis have bewitched them or because they believe their religion rates martyrdom fighting in the cause of Allah the highest achievment
meriting the greatest reward?

Debating whether suicide-killing is Islamic or
not does not change the centrality of Jihad and dhmmitude as institutions in Islam. Saying Islam is being blamed for every act of violence by an Arab or Turk begs the question of why there has been so much violence committed by Muslims in the name of their religion against non-Muslims. Would you like to answer that question? Did the
Saudis invent Jihad and dhimmitude in the last few decades?

Posted by: Nick Danger at November 17, 2008 2:09 PM

"If you were so concerned about the bad rap Islam is getting you'd take matters into your own hands to clean house of the crazies instead of criticizing those who are commenting on it. When you have done that, get back to us. In the meantime we'll do what needs to be done to protect ourselves."

Posted by: Eastview November 17, 2008 12:02 PM

Eastview I think Gorgi understands perfectly well that it is safe in criticizing us in our comments about Jihadists on the net...in turn if he really took the criticism to the mosques & core of Islam in person, Gorgi would end up as another statistic of the Murder Cult® inc...with a toe tag.

Posted by: revparadigm at November 17, 2008 2:44 PM

my 17 november 08- second comment on jihad watch
-----------------------------------------------------

That is a shame that international community didnt acte at time in 1947 and the folowing years...it wouldnt becam so complicated.

Given the risk of more and more Islamisation of the world, I think it is very naif to believe that Israel, sorrounded by so many muslim countries can keep power for ever.

It would be more reasonnable to give back some land to palestinians. I mean a decent land and a decent access to ocean, to make a decent state.

Some times one has to share something or to lose it.
Not giving a state to Palestinians is helping muslim exteremists.
Those who advise to not give any thing to Palestinian are actually gainst Israel.

Also at an ethical level, I believe that as all human been are supposed to be born equal, the futur of Israel and Palestinian children must be garanteed equally. As well as their security.

There is no elected people.
And sincerly this is not an unsult to anyone.

Posted by: Johanna.Adams at November 17, 2008 7:38 PM

'Johanna'

*Whatever* territory the local Arab Muslims in and around Israel get control of will most assuredly be used, sooner or later, as a springboard from which to attack the Jews and that uppity Jewish state (which is annoying Dar Al Islam most horribly because there they have to watch Jews who defy the norms of the dhimma by 1. bearing arms and 2. walking about with their heads high instead of grovelling, crawling and cringing before their rightfully allah-ordained Muslim Uebermensch overlords).

If more land is handed over to the Muslims, I predict with with complete confidence that they will demand more, and continue attacking. The idea of peace between the Jewish state and a Muslim-dominated sharia-influenced 'Palestine', 'two states side by side' is...a snare and a delusion.

No Muslim political entity has EVER kept ANY agreement it has EVER made with a non-Muslim political entity.

Read Bat Yeor on Islam and Dhimmitude, read The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, read Legacy of Jihad. Find out how the Muslims kept on push, push, pushing, raiding, threatening, kidnapping, destroying, until they had eroded away the entire Byzantine Empire.

Always and everywhere, whenever any infidel state attacked or threatened by Muslims, has acceded to Muslim demands, those demands have not led to 'peace' but to further - and more aggressive - demands; give them X, they will immediately demand X + Y. Their normal and natural modus operandi is that of the Mafioso, of the blackmailer and the extortionist.

Google 'posted by Hugh' and 'Treaty of Hudaybiyya' or get Mr Spencer's 'The Truth About Muhammad' and read pages 136-139 where he discusses what that 'treaty' was and how it was used to destroy the Meccans.

That is why I am now convinced that the Jewish state *must* keep control of the military high ground - namely, the Golan Heights and the Judean Hills - and of its holiest site, the Temple Mount, and of its ancient political, historical and religious centre, the city of Jerusalem - INCLUDING what used to be called 'the old city' which is where, up until 1949, most of the ancient Jerusalem Jewish community lived, until they were religiously-cleansed from that district by the Mohammedans. (Read John Roy Carlson, 'From Cairo to Damascus' - he witnessed that act of ethnic-religious cleansing, firsthand; it was an expulsion that could very easily have become an act of mass murder of defenceless people, had Glubb Pasha not been there to impose a certain restraint).

The borders that Israel had before the 1967 war, were virtually indefensible. They started, in that war, from a position of extreme vulnerability. That they won, on that occasion, does not mean that they would win again, were they forced to begin, in another conflict, from the same position of terrifying vulnerability.

To force Israel back within the territory that it controlled 1949-1967 - and to sadistically insist that the heart of Jewish hearts, that is, the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the Old City area of Jerusalem with its ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and all the rest of it, be handed over to the complet control of gloating supremacist Arab Muslims to be their Trophy Capital - is to demand that Israel commit suicide; to hand it over, gagged and bound, to the Jihad.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 17, 2008 9:30 PM

'Johanna'

Are you a Muslim?

If you are not, then I suggest you read the Hamas Charter, and Jacques Ellul's analysis of the PLO Charter (which, he concluded, was 'a perfect expression of the Jihad') and have a good long think about the entrenched and venomous hatred of, and murderous contempt for, Jews qua Jews, that saturates the entire Islamosphere today, and which has existed ever since the beginnings of Islam.

The 'extremism' - that is, the violence of jihad waged against the Jews of Israel, as also against non-Muslims in many, many other places far, far away from Israel (for example, Buddhists in Thailand, Catholics in the Philippines, Hindus in Kashmir) - arises from the core texts of Islam.

If all the local Muslim 'Arabs' (many of whom in fact descend from Arabised non-Arabs, such as Islamised Bosnians and Circassians and Berbers and suchlike) both within Israel and now resident in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, were - per miraculum - to convert to Christianity, or, for that matter, Buddhism, I think that a two-state solution would be perfectly possible. You would then have a Jewish Israel with a substantial Christian (or, to expand the fantasy, Buddhist) 'Arab' minority; alongside a Christian (or, fantastically, Buddhist) 'Arab' 'Palestine' with a substantial Jewish minority.

That would be possible because both Judaism and Christianity teach people to seek compromises,to try to create win-win outcomes. Conversion of the local Arabs to Buddhism would probably also promote a peaceful two-state outcome, since Buddhism has a concept of the principle known as the Golden Rule.

But Islam does not. Toward non-Muslims Islam does not observe the Golden Rule of reciprocity, agreement, do as you would be done by. Islam knows only Victor and Vanquished. The Muslim idea of resolution to a conflict involves the total victory of the Muslim side and the total destruction or absorption of the non-Muslim Other. Even among Muslims themselves the 'always fight' mentality, the 'default' toward suspicion and aggression, leads to endless warfare.

The jihad against Israel arises from Islam; it will be satisfied only by Israel's total destruction; whatever concessions are made to the ummah will only whet their appetite for more, more, more.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 17, 2008 9:56 PM

Gorgi: Your view of history is for sure different from mine.
"The Munich operation was ordered by Yasser Arafat and carried out by Fatah, Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)."
"At 9:30AM, the terrorists announced that they were Palestinian Arabs, and demanded that Israel release 234 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails and Germany release two German terrorist leaders imprisoned in Frankfurt"

http://palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_munich.php

Read what ever you want into it but the truth is not that hard to see. You seem to want to believe that the Ottoman Turks were not Muslims. What were they? Remember that this was not the first persecution of Christians in the sad empire known as Ottoman. That where ever Islam has been or is now there is turmoil, grief, suffering and lack of progress and that they want to inflict that type of mentality on the rest of the world is unbelievable.. The Islamic world hasn't invented anything in the last two hundred years. Some in the Islamic world recognize this such as:

H.E. DR. H. SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA
“When the Ummah crossed the first millennium, they had already built the University of Al Azhar, built the first hospital, used the compass, built sophisticated trade vessels, and developed an extensive body of knowledge on irrigation, astronomy, navigation, chemistry and civil engineering. But something happened along the way. While Europe basked in the Renaissance era for 400 years, the Ummah became stagnant. Over a stretch of centuries, Europe produced Galileo, Copernicus, Watt, Newton, Edison and Einstein, while at the same time, the muslim world was left behind. Europe, not the muslim world, became the bearer of world technological innovation. In the mean time, the muslim world missed the industrial revolution, and missed the transport revolution. The muslim world did not begin the military revolution, and we certainly did not begin the information and communication revolution that is now sweeping the world. All this teach us one critical lesson: the Ummah of today must not be swept in self-doubt and isolationism. Instead, we must embrace a culture of excellence, and we must inculcate that spirit of excellence in our homes, in our classrooms, and in our communities. Globalization, according to Thomas Friedman, is creating a “flat world” with level playing field. It is not just India and China that should be the rising powers taking advantage of globalization. The muslim world too can be part of that picture.” How many in the west that practice Islamophilia could have brought themselves to make the statements that the president of Indonesia made and I would assume that he is considered to be a good Muslim? It surprised me that he chose to deliver this speech in Saudi Arabia.

Posted by: jdoug at November 18, 2008 12:28 AM