Israel: 'George Bush is useless'

Since when has that become important?

 

My short Texan fuse has grown a bit. I really need a trim.

Every time I read something like this, I picture some crazy Yosimite-Sam look-alike screaming "Yeeeeeeeeee HAAAAWWWWW!" and firing his six guns into the air.

Yup, that's me alright. They pegged it perfectly.

 

I didn't say we should issue sanctions....I just said that when Dubya says to withdraw and withdraw now....it falls on deaf ears because there is nothing to back those words up. Sanctions was an example I got from today's news conference with the President's representative(whatever his name is). Bush is taking heat because his denounciations are not doing a thing to stop the Israelis from doing whatever they want regardless of how it makes the US look. Face it....Arabs blame anything Israel does on the US....maybe even moreso than the Israelis themselves. Did we not provide them with most of their weaponry? Do we not stand by and let Israel do whatever they want while offering unwavering support?

I don't think I said we should turn our backs on Israel. I just think we should stop being so one-sided for our own sake. If Dubya is trying to balance public opinion on both sides of the conflict, then it has failed pretty badly. If were the bad guys, then take care of business. Quit p***y-footing around the issue....are they terrorists or aren't they? Israelis want to expel Arafat and dismantle the PA....the US does not. Whose to stop Israel from doing what they want? Noone. I am for a fair solution but neither side is as we all know by the amount of time this has gone on. It's now turned into a revenge and retaliation show as to who can inflict the most damage and casualties. How can peace ever factor into such equation? I would really like to know that.

Sorry for my doom and gloom attitude. If the situation isn't that, then I don't know how else to label it. I don't see it getting any better and judging by the amount of protesting....it's getting worse. Am I incorrect in saying foreign public opinion, especially by Arabs, is one of hatred, resentment, and anger against the US and their policies...especially revolving around Israel? We are all about securing our future interests/security and I don't think our reputation currently is helping that...at all.

 

Surfguy --

I understand your feelings but don't understand what you would have him do. You ultimately are calling for him to take some punishing action towards Israel...sorry, that's not gonna happen. He's acknowledged, like most of us on this board, that there's enough blame to go around. Have we supplied Israel with arms...yes...they've purchased arms from us. Keep in mind, this is our ONLY ally in the ME....it's one of the very few stable governments at all in that region of the world...and the only true democracy to my understanding.

are they terrorists??? Bush has been VERY clear on this and says they are. But he's also saying the Israeli methods and measures of fighting that terrorism aren't great either.

so what action do you want to back up those words???

sorry..but diplomacy is often just words...sometimes that's all you can do. I'm not for thrusting US forces into this situation to assist either side...sooooooo...what???

The Arab nations don't like that the US is an ally of Israel. Sorry. We choose our allies...we choose to align ourselves with more stable democracies. In that region of the world that basically leaves us Israel. To a lesser extent it includes Jordan. But the Arab nations are quite resentful, as is much of the world, of the world's sole superpower. That shouldn't surprise anyone.

 

I don't know what to do to help the situation....peacekeepers or observers which Israel has refused to allow in the past and Arafat has called for...possibly? But, does that stop the terrorism? Doubtful. Does it put in place an obstacle into stopping the Israeli incursions and occupation? Possibly. More involvement in discussions with Arafat and Palestinians to show we are serious about resolving the issue? Probably. Until the Powell visit, the Bush administration has failed to do this. Again, they call for an end to terrorism yet fail to label the PA and Arafat terrorists.

In the end, none of that is probably going to do it. I don't necessarily mean we should punish Israel for their actions but rather do something to make them heed our words. Obviously, democracy isn't really working if one side is doing whatever it wants and the other is calling for the opposite action.

Diplomacy is often just a war of words...granted. There is no doubt who our true allies are. The Arab world calling suicide bombing innocent civilians "freedom fighting" to liberate their land is just flat out wrong just as it's wrong at the apparent lack of restraint on the Israeli's side in minimizing innocent civilian casualties. If you want to take it back to the beginning, then it was the Arabs who started this "war" in the first place. Their so hell bent on revenge and retaliation that the "idea" that if they just stopped...the occupation would end and their suffering may ease...doesn't even cross their minds. Until their willing to accept that, this will not end. To ask for an end to the occupation while suicide bombing is ongoing is absolutely ludicrous.

Doom and gloom, man. I hope Israel does wipe out the entire militant population...but that's pretty much impossible with so many ready to take their place. I think one of the peoples has to go in the end....or do what someone else said....divide them up and put up a really, really big wall....maybe even a dome.

It's hard to find optimism in any of it...I mean how long can the debate go on with no solution in sight. Forever I guess. We better do a good job of keeping Arabs away from WMD because they would use them on Israel and we will be forced to respond militarily. It's not going to be over before we have to deal with Saddam so we might as well blow off Arab support on the war with Iraq.

 

Six-shooter you mean?

 

cute dog gettinbranded!!

 

Dubya brought American people together and bombed the crap out of Afghanistan.

This is a testimony to his greatness?

I wonder if anyone else being president wouldnt of done pretty much the same things.


As far as Isreal not responding the the US demanding them stopping their own political agenda's.


I wonder how the US would of responded if Israel told us to stop our war on terrorism. I understand that we are not nearly as agressive as Isreal is with terrorists, but we havent seen what they have on an annual basis. In their mind they are taking the proper action. Who are we to demand anything from them, until we are ready to be demanded upon with our own policies, and agenda's.

 

everytime i read about the middle east - specifically the palestinian-israel conflict, it saddens me.

the situation is NOT one that can easily be handled by big brother going in and say, "stop you kids, and timeout. ok you palestinians go over there, stop blowing people up and we'll give you a state. and you israel, stop taking your tanks into the family's homes and firing missles into towns." i don't think the situation is that simple that we can just sit here behind our monitors and comment, "but, how can they do this... can they just get along/behave like reasonable humans?"

1) but how can israel trust the plo when it sends men with bombs strapped to their bodies into pizzerias and buses and malls and nightclubs? send jewish boys into the west bank strapped with explosives?

2) how can israel talk with someone who, if not the majority, then at least the leaders, want to see them gone from the lands---with good, if not some reason? how can you negotiate with that thought in the back of your minds?

3) palestinian state - didn't the oslo accords give a section of israel as an independent entity to be governed by arab palestinians? but the plo turned it down. why?

4) how can the cycle of ressenitment be broken when the land you were displaced by another people by a mandate from a people foreign to you? the arab palestinians have nowhere to go.. other arab countries will not take them.. and the conditions they are living in are horrid. this kind of environment fosters the hatred and wanton sacrificial nature that begets violence.

the solution seems simple. stop fighting. stop instilling a sense of matyrdom into your young men. stop the inflammatory rhetoric and the tanks and helicopters and the abuse of a people weaker than you. and use the money that is spent on weapons and walls and espionage and infatadas on schools and drainage systems and housing developments and teach your children and society to become one of tolerance.

but this will not happen.. for whatever reasons, oil, inferiority complexes, whatever, the leaders in this reason are dragging their people to the abyss.. and i fear that the situation will only be resolved when one side is utterly decimated.

there comes a time when you have to take sides, i think, and the us has to make a stand, one way or the other, and live with that. appeasement has never worked. i personally think that killing civilians is wrong, normatively. i do not think arafat has a grip on the edgier elements in the palestinian peoples--either that, or he's collaborating with the---the results speak for themselves. i do think that in this particular crisis (separate from the brutaility of israel before) arafat and the plo deserves the greater share of the wrong. they in effect forced israel to rally behind sharon and the right wing elements and up the ante in this "war". i would choose the israel side.

and under the bush doctrine: which side will the us choose?

 

We have absolutely no leverage with Israel, sadly. Does this really surprise anyone? Leverage is, ultimately, a product of willingess to use coercive power against another state. And the ability to inflict pain upon them.

All the "common values" and "friends" rhetoric is garbage. The history of international relations is that of pure power relations.

We're not willing to use even economic sanctions on Israel... so we have no power. It's that simple. We have the choice of either:

A. Becoming willing to exercise coercive power against Israel

or

B. Being impotent in the matter.

Just to make sure everyone understands... I don't mean that we should consider invading. I mean, economic tools... or more likely, with-holding arms transfers.

 

Seems like Sharon is much more of an impediment than Pres. Bush in giving the Palestinians their homeland, yet you knock George for not solving things?


Mango

 

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one MM. There is a series of incidents early in this uprising that I haven't reconciled, and that hang over this whole situation for me. They are the events of late September 2000 through to the end of 2000.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,554625,00.html
For the first part of 2000 there was relatively little violence, and only a few deaths. On September 29 Sharon, a holy Muslim site on a Friday, the Muslim holy day. This is obviously a highly provocative act. Rioting breaks out to no one's surprise. Rioting has happened here before, and the Israelis have always responded with rubber bullets and other containment strategies. This time, however, the Israelis respond with real bullets, and Palestinians start dying by the dozen. We later find out that they are also now employing the use of snipers to target specific individuals in the crowds. 55 die in 5 days in an area where only 2 had been killed in the preceding 8 months. By mid December the death toll is 330. So I have to ask, why? Do the Israelis really want a peace settlement? It looks to me like they didn't trust the peace process, and took drastic measures to derail it. If so, how do we make them participate, in good faith, on a new solution? I think that if the US is to be involved, and I think they pretty well have to be, then significant pressure must be applied to the Israelis.

The US has other allies in the area, but most are shaky in their support and/or not very powerful, and the US has never been too concerned about having democracies as allies. In this situation I think that dealing with the issues at had should take precedence. (The extent to which Israel is an effective democracy given that their army seems to have control of their media is another question). We also need to consider why the US doesn't have strong support in the area. A significant contributing factor is that there is a generally held sentiment that the US hasn't been fair to the Palestinians. Continuing to be muted in the response to the Israelis, while not addressing rights of the Palestinians worsens the problem rather than helps it, IMO.

Choosing Israel at the expense of the Arab world is a mistake, IMO. As difficult as it is, it's important to try to be fair and just to both sides. Not only is that "the right thing to do," it serves long term strategic interests by beginning to address many Arab nation's sense of unfair treatment by the US.

I don't think that's the main issue. I have a number of Arab friends, classmates, who are quite angry about what's happening. I'd say that their anger is about injustice and perceived injustice, not jealously.

 

A key point to remember is that since 1990 or is it 1993 at Oslo the Palestinians and the Arabs have talked while the Israelis have continued to build settlements above the key point of the underground aquifer that is the main water supply for the area. These setlements are of fanatical religious types. Everyone knows this is to try to make it politically impossible to abandon those settlements and therefore have a maeaningful land for peace deal.

In this case the Israeli actions speak louder than their words or those of their defenders.

 

Madmax said: You can't talk in a bubble and simply say, "we're spending this much...and it just sounds like too much!!" That's not giving a full and accurate picture of the situation.

Madmax I agree an abstract figure $400 billion or 900 billion means nothing. So I'll try to put it in context for you.

As has been show before, the US spends more on defense than the next 10 to 15 countries in the world combined and all but two, Russia and China are our long term allies.

You can't just say we need to spend more and more without context, just because you object to anyone saying $400 billion is not enough.

 

Grizzled -- honestly, I don't think the Israelis have any reason to trust in a peace process. Everytime they go to the table to talk, suicide bombers come out of the woodwork...it goes in cycles, and this little cycle actually kicked in gear during the Camp David meetings. Everytime the US gets involved in trying to broker peace, it turns out bad for the Israelis...everytime they attempt to enter the peace process, they get burned. It's no wonder they don't trust that process...they've learned from experience. Until some control is taken over the suicide bombers (who honestly can't stand the very existence of Israel itself) there will be no peace. Israel has to defend itself...and again, going to the peace table, from their experience, solves nothing.

I don't believe the US will "punish" Israel in any way. That's all I was saying in that first statement you posted.

Yes..the US has other allies there..like Jordan. Saudi Arabia spends millions to assist terrorists blow up embassies and crash planes into our buildings...with friends like that....u know the rest!

The US and the West in general are seen as infidels. That's the bottom line. What we call liberty, they call heresy. It is a clash of cultures...I don't believe they will ever truly "like us" in any meaningful way.

I really didn't mean to say that we shouldn't attempt to make allies of the Arab nations...we absolutely should. Again...before 9/11, President Bush called for the creation of a Palestinian state. It went largely unnoticed and won us zero political capital amongst those nations. Again...Arafat was offered about 90% of what he wanted in previous peace talks, and he turned it down. Arafat calls for peace in English...but in his native tongue calls for more suicide attacks. His groups send 10 year old children out to kill themselves and others. When is enough enough?? When do you finally say, "you know what...i don't think these guys will be satisfied until Israel no longer exists."

 

glynch -- we're called on to defend the world...problems in Eastern Europe?? call in the Americans. Kuwait is attacked by a madman?? call in the Americans. Problems with warlords in Somalia?? call in the Americans. We are called on to defend the world, and defending the world is damn expensive. So is defending our liberty.

this is not the context i'm talking about. the question is how much does it cost to prosecute a war on terrorism (a war you don't support but nearly 90% of the rest of this country does) and how many weapons do we need to replace that weren't replaced by the previous administration? Liberty doesn't come cheap, glynch.

 

Haven don't underestimate the power the USA has over Israel. It is great. Their economy and their enormous disproportionate expenditure on arms are totally dependent on the US and the Western Europeans who are already talking about sanctions.

There is no doubt a tough political fight to win in the US to get to the point of allowing Bush and our leaders to threaten sanctions against Israe, given the alliance of US Jews, who are generally more hostile to the Palestinians than the Israeli Jews and conservatives who support Israel for religious and in some cases racist reasons. Other tough fights have been won in the past for progressive values such as the Civil Rights Movement. Progress can be made.

 

and don't forget those of us who just think terrorism blows!! i could care less about the race of the people..if you send 10 year olds on suicide missions...if you blow up school buses and pizza parlors...i'm not on your side. I'm not a US Jew...I don't have any particular religious reason to support Israel...I'd like to think I'm not racist...I just hate terrorism.

 

Max: I get your point. I just wonder how much is too much. When will we begin to justify NOT spending more on education and healthcare, for example, as a means of protecting ourselves?